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Iren^us Letters. 



ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 



IN THE 



NEW YORK OBSERVER. 



THE NEW YORK OBSERVER. 
1882. 






:T3X1 



Copyright, 1880, by 
New York Observer. 



From 
American Colonization Society 
Uay 28, 1913. 



Press of 

S. W. Green's Son, 

14 Beekman Street, 

New York. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE, 

BY THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK OBSERVER. 

In the year 1837 the signature of Iren^eus first appeared 
on the pages of the New York Observer. The writer was 
then a pastor in the Highlands of the Hudson. In the 
month of April, 1840, he became one of its editors, and has 
been writing in it, with brief intervals, every week for more 
than forty years. He has established such relations with his 
readers that he has come to regard them as personal friends, 
and he has received abundant assurance that this feeling is 
reciprocated. 

Requests, many and earnest, have been made by our sub- 
scribers for the collection of these letters into a volume. 

"Travels in Europe and the East," " Switzerland," "The 
Alhambra and the Kremlin," " Under the Trees " and "Walk- 
ing with God," are the names of books originally published 
as " Irenseus Letters" in this paper. But this volume con- 
tains a selection of more familiar, household letters, such as 
have been specially mentioned by our readers as giving them 
pleasure, and it is now published in compliance with their 
repeated requests to have them in this permanent form. 




1 

s 



¥ 



U 



THE NEW YORK OBSERVER: 
A NATIONAL, RELIGIOUS, FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 



Not Sectional. 



Not Sectarian. 



// has two distinct sheets in one : 
Readily separated so as to form two journals. One filled with 

Religious and the other with Secular Reading. 
All the news of all Christian Churches of all denominations and from 
all foreign countries is furnished by correspondents in every part 
of our own country and in every quarter of the globe. So wide is 
the range of religious intelligence, of Literature, Science, Art, 
Commerce and Agriculture, that the reading of this paper is an 
education to the whole fa?nily that receives it. 

Its editors and sole proprietors are the 

Rev. Drs. S. Iren^eus Prime, E. D. G. Prime, 

Chas. A. Stoddard, and Wendell Prime. 
Besides these it has four editors of special departments and a large 
corps of special contributors. Its correspondence from Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and the Pacific Islands is a valuable feature ; its editorials are 
fearless and fair ; its selections are made from an extensive reading 
with taste and discernment, and its Notices and Reviews of Books and 
Magazines give a correct idea of current literature. 

TERMS: $3.15 {postpaid) payable in advance, 
SPECIAL OFFER: The New York Observer will send to any 
OLD subscriber who pays his own subscription in advance, one 
copy of "Iren&us Letters "for each NEW subscriber whose name he 
also forwards with $3.15 








ESHI 



CONTENTS. 



PAGK 

Adams, Dr., Intercourse with 389 

Agatha and her Dish 300 

Among the Icebergs 131 

Amphitheatres and Theatres 230 

Anna Dickinson on Theatres 340 

Apostle in Rome 295 

Arguing with a Poker and a Hammer 336 

Babes in the Woods 113 

Bear in Boston 52 

Beggar, An Interesting 134 

Beggars' Church and the Beggars of Italy 288 

Bryant, William Cullen 160 

Calling Bad Names 25 

Castle of Unspunnen 190 

Cemetery beneath a Cemetery 238 

Chester Cathedral Service 178 

Childhood of Christ 6 

Children and the Church 79 

Choosing a Minister's Wife 16 

Church and a Picture 225 

Church and Cloisters of St. Mark 263 

Convent on the Sea 235 

Country Pastor's Sermon 46 

Cowper and Ray Palmer 137 

Cox, The late Dr. S. H 394 

Doremus, Mrs ' 49 

Doughnation Party 98 

Dream of the Year 62 

Dresden Pictures 202 



6 CONTENTS. 

PACE 

Eternal City, Why ? , 276 

Evil Eye 105 

Fife and the Violin . . 311 

Fine Old English Gentleman 207 

Gamblers at Monaco 329 

Going to a Glacier 193 

Going to Rome 272 

Great Exaggerator 153 

Green Vaults 197 

Habits, especially Bad Habits 102 

Henry and Hildebrand 123 

His Grandfather's Barn 22 

Hold up your Head 127 

It's his Way 55 

Jews' Quarter in Rome 291 

Lance of St. Maurice 215 

Lesson from a Sick-room 150 

Long-winded Speakers 120 

Made without a Maker 333 

Manners in Church 116 

Man who had to wait for a Seat in Church 326 

Meanest Woman in New York \ 381 

Milk and Water 370 

Ministers' Pay in Old Times 87 

Ministers' Sons 359 

Minister who was hung 363 

Miseries of being reported in the Newspapers 308 

Model Minister 109 

Monastery and Convent 186 

Morning Adventure in Rome 280 

Muhlenberg, The Good Dr 385 

Murray, Dr. : Bishop Hughes 90 

Music Composer Spoiled 9 

My first Sight of Niagara 3*4 

My Vine: my poor Vine! • 374 

Name above Every Name I4 1 

New England Homes and Graves 3° 

O Thou of Little Faith 167 

Pur Friends in Heaven 344 



CONTENTS. 7 

PAGE 

Our Windows in Florence 243 

Pastor and Friend 59 

Pleasant Recollections 13 

Sabbath among the Hills 69 

Sabbath in Cambridge, England 181 

San Miniato and Vallombrosa 249 

Santa Croce and the Inquisition in Florence 255 

Service of Song 73 

Shakers of Canterbury 82 

Spring's Prediction, Dr 66 

Story and the Church of St. Cecilia 284 

Studies in Torture Rooms 211 

Summer Board and Summer Boarders 40 

Sunday Evening Supper 304 

Taxing a Child's Brain 36 

Ten Days on the Ship 173 

That Dreadful Boy 1 

Through the Tyrol 220 

Torturing the Little Ones 366 

Two Hours in Court 94 

Two Pictures: Ideal, but Real 170 

Warriors on War 164 

Week in the White House 145 

When it Rains, let it Rain 157 

When not to Laugh 348 

White and Yellow Meeting-Houses * 377 

White Mountain Notch 321 

With a Pirate in his Cell 351 

Woman's View of Crime 355 



IRENLEUS LETTERS. 



THAT DREADFUL BOY. 

He was going from Boston to Old Orchard with his 
mother. I was sorry to be in the same car with them. His 
mother seemed to exist only to be worried by this uneasy, 
distressing boy. He had only one fault — he was perfectly 
insufferable. 

If I say he was " an unlicked cub" I shall offend your ears. 
Lick is an old English word that means either to lap or to 
strike. Shakespeare uses unlicked as applied to the cub of a 
bear ; there was a notion that the whelp was at first a form- 
less thing that had to be " licked into shape" by the mother's 
tongue. So it came to pass that the vulgar expression, " an 
unlicked cub," was fittingly applied to a boy whose mother 
never gave him the culture essential to make him present- 
able, or even tolerable, in the society of well-behaved people. 
The two meanings of the word are not very diverse. 

This boy had never been licked into shape. He needed 
licking. I use the word in its two senses. And the use, if 
not elegant, is intelligible and expressive, perhaps graphic 
also. The mother besought him to be still for a moment, but 
the moment of stillness never came. He wanted something 
to eat, got it; to drink, and he kept a steady trot through the 
car ; the anxious mother prayed him not to go to the plat- 
form, not to put his head out of the window, not to climb 
over the seats; all in vain. She might as well have en- 
treated the engine. 

In travelling, one is often haunted by people from whom 
he tries to fly. He meets them at the galleries or the dinner- 



$ IRE N^ US LETTERS. 

table. The dreadful boy and his mother were in the parlor 
of the seaside hotel where I had engaged my lodgings. In 
half a day this dreadful boy was the pest and nuisance of the 
piazza, the parlors and the halls. His intellectual mother, 
coddling and coaxing him, sought to win him into the ways 
of decency and peace, but he rejoiced in showing he was not 
tied to his mother. The more she reasoned the more he 
rioted in his liberty. 

" I would drown the little plague if I could catch him in 
the water," said a crusty savage from New York City ; "the 
ill-mannered cur minds nobody and fears nobody/' 

One evening we were seated in the parlor, in little groups, 
conversing. Into the room rushed the dreadful boy pursued 
by another whom he had hit, and both were screaming in 
play at the top of their voices. As he was passing me I 
seized him by the arm with a grip that meant business, and 
said : " Here, my boy, we have stood this thing long enough : 
it has come to an end." An awful silence filled the room ; 
his mother, frightened, sat pale, and not far away, while I 
held the culprit and pursued the lecture — " If you do not 
know how to behave in company, let me tell you the parlor 
is no place for such romps as we have suffered from you ; go 
out of doors and stay out for such games, and when you 
come in here, sit down and be quiet." He wriggled to get 
away, but I led him to the door and left him on the outside. 

As I had not been introduced to his mother, I was not sup- 
posed to know whose boy it was, and therefore made no 
apologies for this summary discipline of somebody else's child. 

The next day I was sitting on the beach under a sun um- 
brella, when a party of ladies and the dreadful boy hove in 
sight, and sought seats near me. I offered my seat to the 
mother, but she found one at hand, thanked me, and said : 

" I am under great obligation to you, sir, for taking my 
boy in hand last evening." 

" It is rather in my place," I made answer, " to apologize 
for laying hands on the child of another: but I saw he 
was regardless of authority, and thought to give him a 
lesson." 



THAT DREADFUL BOY. 3 

"Thanks: but I would like to tell you of him: he is a 
dear child, an only child, and his father, often and long away 
from home on business, has left his education and care to 
me entirely. I have the impression that the strongest of all 
influences is love, and that none is so strong as a mother's 
love : I never speak to him but in tones and words of affec- 
tion : I never deny him any indulgence he asks : I let him 
have his own way and never punish him, lest he should 
be offended with me. I wish that he may not have any 
thoughts of his mother but those of kindness, gentleness and 
love. Your sudden and decided measure last night startled 
me, but its effect on the child was remarkable. He has not 
yet recovered, and this morning he spoke to me of it, as if a 
new sensation had been awakened. Will you tell me frankly 
what your opinion is of the probable result of the system 
which I am pursuing?" 

" It is not becoming in a stranger," I said, " to speak plainly 
in regard to the domestic management of another, and I hope 
you will excuse me from expressing an opinion which it 
would not be pleasant for you to hear." 

" But I want to hear it ; the good of my child is the dear- 
est object in this world : I have nothing else to live for, but 
it seems to me that the more I love him the less he cares for 
me or my wishes, the more unruly and troublesome he be- 
comes. Your decided dealing with him has frightened me 
in regard to my course of training." 

" Rather you should say your ' want of training him/ You 
do not read correctly the words of the wise man, ' Train up a 
child/ etc. You are letting him grow up without training, 
and my fear is that he will be hung — " 

" Hung ! hung ! what do you mean ?" 

" Only this, that you are allowing him now to be a lawless, 
selfish, domineering, disagreeable boy : he has his own way 
always : he tramples on your wishes now, and will tread on 
your heart soon and love to do it : such boys are bad at 
home and worse out of doors : growing up ungoverned, he 
will defy authority, be hated by his companions, get into 
trouble, become turbulent, riotous, perhaps an outlaw, and 



4 IREN&US LETTERS, 

will come to some bad end, I fear a rope's end. This plain 
talk offends you, I perceive." 

" No, it does not : I am thinking, but I am not offended. I 
asked your candid opinion and have received it, and it has 
made me anxious lest I have already done an irreparable 
injury to the dear child. Do you believe in the corporal 
punishment of children?" 

" It is sometimes a duty. You may restrain the wayward- 
ness of some children without actually whipping them, and if 
you can, by all means do so. But the first duty of a child is to 
obey its parents. Your boy never obeyed you since he was 
born !" 

" True, very true : he has always had his own way." 

" Yes, and is therefore never happy : he would cry for the 
moon, and fret because he cannot have it. He is no comfort 
to you, and is a torment to all about him. If you would 
make him happy, you will make hiin mind: and especially to 
obey his mother. I do not believe that you will succeed." 

" Pray, why not, sir ?" - 

" Because, madam, you have ' views ' that are opposed to 
these. You believe only in moral suasion, in the largest lib- 
erty, and you cannot break away from your opinions and 
surroundings and persistently, steadily and faithfully pursue 
a new line of life with that boy." 

" But I will try." 

" God help you, madam, and you will need his help, for you 
have a long struggle before you. But the prize is worth it, 
and I wish you success with all my heart. Your child will 
love you ten times more if you teach him to respect you : he 
will not love you while you let him defy and despise your 
authority as he does now. Soon he will love you, and love 
to obey you, and then he is saved. Solomon was a wise man, 
and spoke divine wisdom when he said, ' He that spareth 
the rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth 
him betimes.' " 

The madam had a smile of contempt on her face, and said, 
" I don't think much of Solomon." 

" Probably not," I replied. " Did you ever read the Apoc- 



THAT DREADFUL BOY, 5 

rypha ? Those Oriental writings are not inspired, so you need 
not be afraid of them" — she laughed — "and I will give you 
the sage advice of the Son of Sirach: 'Indulge thy child 
and he shall make thee afraid : humor him and he will bring 
thee to heaviness. Bow down his neck while he is young, 
and beat him on the sides while he is a child, lest he wax 
stubborn and be disobedient unto thee, and so bring sorrow 
upon thy heart.' Which means teach him to obey, or he will 
govern you and break your heart." 

The mother was silent a moment, and then spoke with 
quivering lips : " Did you ever read Patmore's lines, ' My 
Little Son ' ? No ? Well, I will say them, for they are on my 
heart : 

*• My little son, who looked from thoughtful eyes, 
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, 
Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, 
I struck him and dismiss'd 
With hard words and unkiss'd, 
His mother, who was patient, being dead. 
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, 
I visited his bed, 
But found him slumbering deep, 
With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet 
From his late sobbing wet. 
And I, with moan, 

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own ; 
For, on a table drawn beside his head, 
He had put, within his reach, 
A box of counters and a red-veined stone, 
A piece of glass abraded by the beach, 
And six or seven shells, 
A bottle with bluebells, 

And two French copper coins ranged there with careful art, 
To comfort his sad heart. 
So, when that night I pray'd 
To God, I wept and said : 
Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, 
Not vexing thee in death, 
And thou rememberest of what toys 
We made our joys, 
How weakly understood 
Thy great commanded good, 



6 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

Then, fatherly not less 

Than I whom thou hast moulded from the clay, 
Thou'lt leave thy wrath and say, 
41 * I will be sorry for their childishness." ' " 

"Thank you," I said, as she paused — her eyes filled with 
tears — " thank you : no child should be ' struck in anger and 
dismissed with hard words.' Punishment in love and justice 
breaks no child's heart : that father was all wrong." 
" I see it," she answered, " and I begin to feel it also." 
We exchanged cards, and I hope to hear of the dreadful 
boy again. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST. 

When I was in Nazareth, the child-life of Jesus excited 
emotions of a character not difficult to recall, but very hard 
to relate. 

I was led to the shop where tradition says that Joseph 
wrought at his trade of a carpenter. And now I have on 
the wall before me an exquisite engraving of the man at his 
work, while a lovely boy is looking on. The light divine is 
playing on the child's brow. 

Nazareth is in a valley, and the hills surround it like the 
rim of a basin. On this ridge, perhaps, the child Christ had 
often walked, and from it looked away to the hills now 
famous and sacred in the story of his life and death, and 
in the history that was the prophecy of his coming. Carmel 
stretches away to the sea on the right. The dome of Mount 
Tabor salutes the vault of heaven on the left. Gilboa and 
the lesser Hermon remind us of Saul and Jonathan, and 
the sweet singer of Israel. We look out on the plain of 
Esdraelon, the wide battle-field of old, and the field of mira- 
cles of mercy as well. In the distance are places where the 
Saviour, in the days of his ministry, went about doing good ; 
and the region finally sanctified by his death and ascension 
to the glory that was his before the world was. 



THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST. 7 

It requires no superstition to invest such a walk with holy- 
interest. The spot is not marked by great events to which 
the world makes pilgrimage. It is not certain that the child 
Jesus ever stood in the place where I was standing when I 
looked down upon Nazareth, and off toward Mount Moriah, 
and the City of the Great King ! But the mystery of the 
Incarnation and Youth of the Son of God was invested with 
fresh beauty and power as I wondered what were the emo- 
tions of the boy in those days of his childhood, before he 
took on his shoulders the burden which he came to bear. 
He knew all that was before him / 

When he was an infant on his mother's neck, she was 
conscious of the mighty secret that he was the Son of 
God, and she alone of all the daughters or sons of men 
knew that truth : even then, in the tender years of his infancy, 
the cross and the nails and the spear were in his heart, as 
afterwards on Calvary. She, too, had been told that the 
sword would pierce through her own soul, and thus the 
sorrows of the infant Jesus were shared in the sympathy of 
his mother. 

He was strong in spirit when yet in the dew of his youth. 
He was filled with wisdom. And the grace of God was 
upon him. Wonderful must have been the boyhood thus 
endowed. What the thoughts of his mother were in those 
days we know not, but she kept all his strange sayings 
in her heart, and linked them with the awful mystery of his 
advent by a way known only to herself and the Spirit of the 
Lord. 

He was only twelve years old when he went up with his 
parents to Jerusalem, and there stood before the teachers in 
the temple, and taught them so that they were astonished 
at his understanding, and his answers to the questions which 
they proposed to the precocious and inquisitive lad. It was 
more marvellous then than it would be now for a child to 
take such a place before a college of professors. The rever- 
ence for age and wisdom and authority is much less now 
than in those days, and the doctors of divinity might well 
have been surprised at the courage no less than the learning 



8 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

of a child of twelve, who could sit in their presence and hold 
his own in extemporaneous debate. 

" Don't you know that I must be about my Father's busi- 
ness ?" were the strange words he uttered when his mother 
found him, after three days' search. It is very plain that 
Mary, the blessed Mother of Jesus, whom millions of igno- 
rant people now worship with prayers invoking her protec- 
tion, is no more able to take care of us than any other 
mother is, for she could not keep watch of her own child on 
the journey from Jerusalem to Nazareth, and it took her 
three days to find him. I am sure that she is no more able 
to help and save than my mother is, and it is just as well to 
pray to one as the other. 

And with what filial respect and confidence the child Jesus 
met his mothers call, and turned away from the congenial 
company of those men of learning! He must go back to 
Nazareth, to the carpenter's shop and the daily toil. He 
might be a Rabbi among Rabbis. But his time had not 
yet come. He went home and was obedient unto his parents. 
He was a good boy. That is saying much for him. And it 
is a wonderful fact that a life of Christ, written on one sheet 
like this, has space for the record that he obeyed his mother! 
He was the Saviour of Men, the Lord of Glory, the Man of 
Sorrows, the Prince of Peace. He came to seek and save 
the lost, and his life of work for a world is full of incident, 
activity and tragedy, but his biographer begins by telling us 
that he was a child who was subject to his parents. 

I find in that simple statement a great truth for all time, 
all lands, all parents and all children. I thought of it as I 
stood on the hill over Nazareth, and looked off into the 
western sky where the sun was going down to shine on an- 
other dear and sacred home. And when with my friend 
now in heaven, the missionary Calhoun, I went to bed in 
the Convent that night, and talked with him of those we 
loved across the sea, my mind was filled with thoughts of the 
childhood of Jesus when he was subject to his parents. 

The holy child Jesus ! At this season of the year, and 
on this day of all the days in the year, I would write to the 
parents and the children who read these lines, and commend 



A MUSIC-COMPOSER SPOILED. g 

to them the life of the Holy Child Jesus: of Jesus when he 
was a child.. Even then he was filled with wisdom and 
grace, and he grew in favor with God and man as he in- 
creased in stature, but the crown of his childhood was obe- 
dience to his parents. 

The happiest child in the world is one who takes delight 
in doing what is well pleasing to God and its parents. 

Out of that vale of Nazareth has gone a child whose life 
and death have been the light and joy and will yet be the 
salvation of the world. To be like that Child is heaven be- 
gun. To be. like him here is to be with him, in his Father's 
house, forever. 



A MUSIC-COMPOSER SPOILED. 

THE FATE OF POOR RICHARD LEARNING TO SING. 

When I was a lad of a dozen years, we had a singing school 
in the congregation of the "Old White Meeting House." 
No such schools are in these days, in this part of the country. 
It was held once a week, in the big ball-room of the tavern, 
across the green, opposite the church. From all the region, 
miles around, the young men and maidens came by scores, 
and were trained to sing the tunes that were used on the 
Sabbath day. The school was a great winter treat, and the 
intermission in the middle of the evening was particularly 
enjoyed and improved. 

Of one of the boys who attended this school you will now 
be told, but to spare his feelings, especially his modesty, his 
name will be carefully concealed. Sufficient has been his 
mortification, as you are to learn, and I remember the remark 
of ^neas to Dido, when she asked him to tell the story of 
his sufferings : 

"What you, O Queen, command me to relate, 
Renews the sad remembrance of my fate." 

Therefore I shall not mention his real name, but speak of 
him as Richard. 



IO I REN JE US LETTERS. 

Richard was one of the minister's sons, and very ambitious 
to be a singer. He had a passion for music, as was apparent 
from the vigor with which he beat the drum and blew the 
horn in those childish plays which made the welkin ring and 
annoyed the neighbors. When a teacher from Connecticut 
came there, and got up a singing school, Richard entered it 
with the fire of genius kindling in his eye, and his ear open to 
the expected sounds. The primary rules of the science and art 
of music being readily mastered, and easy tunes rehearsed till 
they were quite familiar, he seized the pen of the composer, 
and with rapid strokes produced one and then another tune 
of his own, with judicious and discriminating indications on 
the staff with Cleff and Slurs, Hold, Staccato, Swell (much of 
that), Piano and Forte and Mezzo, even now and then Con 
Spirito, Andante, Ad Libitum, etc. 

These tunes the teacher examined, played them on the bass 
viol, and sang them with fitting words. They passed that 
dread ordeal, and were pronounced remarkably well done for 
a child. Alas, that this same teacher should prove the ruin 
of this incipient Mozart or Handel ! The winter rapidly slid 
along. The school flourished grandly. A choir of a hun- 
dred was ready to fill the gallery and shake the pillars of the 
church. As the young Richard was singing at the top of his 
voice, and doubtless making obvious discord, the master, 
passing near him, was provoked, and stopping in the midst of 
the tune, and in sudden silence, said impatiently and severely, 
" You have too many corners to your throat to learn to sing !" 

The cruel man might better have broken his viol over the 
boy's head. As it was, he broke the boy's heart. Down 
went his aspirations, and from that hour to this he has never 
tried to learn a line of music, and has long since ceased to 
know one tune from another. Then and there a sense of 
discouragement took hold on him and never let him up. 
Whatever else he could do and did, he made no further prog- 
ress in the culture of his voice or the art of composing 
music ! Yet he never ceased to love it, and never ceased to 
regret that he did not despise the rebuke, and give the lie to 
the prophet, by overmastering the difficulties, rounding the 



A MUSIC-COMPOSER SPOILED. II 

corners of his throat, and learning to sing. Thirty years 
after this blow fell on him he tvas relating his fate to Mr. 
Thomas Hastings, the famous teacher and composer of sacred 
music. That excellent man, of blessed memory, said to him 
on hearing his story : 

" Sing with me the eight notes." 

He did so to the best of his ability. 

"There is no reason in the world," said this master, 
"why you should not be a good singer. If you will begin 
now, you will succeed beyond all doubt." • 

But the man would not undertake what the boy had 
abandoned as a hopeless task. The boy was father of the 
man. 

Mr. Hastings said : " Every one may learn to sing : not 
one in a thousand has any natural deficiency to prevent him 
from being a fair singer." But Richard was too old a bird 
to begin. He could not be flattered into a fresh exposure of 
those fatal corners. 

The fate of this ambitious youth, and the sad loss the 
world has suffered by the early clipping of his musical wings, 
may be utilized in a note of warning to parents and 
teachers. 

There is a bent, a trend, a tendency in the nature of 
children, which should be taken into account in the culture 
of their minds and the choice of a pursuit in life. Some- 
times it should be discouraged, for it does not always point 
to usefulness, honor and happiness. Just as the twig, etc. 
And in early years, even a bad tendency may be repressed or 
eradicated, which, left unchecked, will become a resistless 
flood, an ungovernable passion, a fatal power. But this 
natural force, inclination or propensity, when rightly guided, 
will be clear gain in the development of character, making a 
grand success. 

It is better in the training of the young to rely more on 
cautious encouragement, than rough reproof and constant 
censure or fault-finding. The race is weary enough, and the 
toil up hill is hard enough, to justify all the help that parent 
and teacher can afford. Repression and scolding only 



12 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

irritate the soul, without adding to its power. Often the 
brain is confused by a harsh word, and the mind is diverted 
from the point, when a smile and kindly remark would be 
a ray of sunlight guiding to the true answer. One of the 
marvels of human nature is that loving parents often abuse 
their children under a mistaken sense of duty. 

But there is something for every one to do in this world, 
and when a musician is spoiled, it is not certain that he does 
not turn out to be something better. " There's a Divinity 
that shapes our ends." The great difference in the men We 
meet is energy or the want of it. Given fair natural powers, 
the average, then put on the steam, and the man will go. 
With virtue at the helm, the worker will win usefulness and 
bread, and with them the chief end of man. 

This is ■ rather a dull ending of poor Richard's musical 
career. He did not go singing his way through the world. 
He never learned to distinguish one tune by its name. But 
no waters could quench the music in his soul. He heard it 
in the spheres when " in solemn silence all move round this 
dark terrestrial ball." He listened to it among the pine trees 
through which the meadow brook wound its way. In the 
sounding ocean and the shells he listened to the mystery and 
melody of the sea. Even the growth of the plants, as he put 
his ear to the sod, made music. And at home and in far 
cities he heard the great masters of voice and instrument, 
Braham and Jenny Lind, the two greatest human voices of 
the century, and all the lyric songsters that have swept the 
heart and harp chords of the age: he felt the passion strains 
in the Sistine chapel, rose in rapture on the organ tones at 
Frieburg, and wept in a delirium of emotion under the 
choir of St. Roch ; he thought with the wisest of men to get 
him " men singers and women singers," and perhaps has 
found as exquisite delight in the concord of sweet sounds as 
any untutored mind can enjoy, but he has never ceased to 
regret that his first music teacher, that peripatetic pedagogue 
from Connecticut, said to him, in the hearing of a hundred, 
"You have too many corners to your throat to learn to 
sing." 



PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS. 13 

PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS 

OF A ROMAN CATHOLIC PASTOR AND FRIEND. 

This, as I learn by the daily papers, is the anniversary of 
the death of Rev. Dr. Cummings, the pastor of St. Stephen's 
Roman Catholic Church in 28th Street in this city. His 
church was, and is, distinguished for its music, which draws 
throngs to its courts. The style of the music is more artistic 
than we have in our most fashionable Protestant churches, 
but it is attractive in the highest degree. He died thirteen 
years ago to-day, and, as on the return of each anniversary, 
a solemn high mass of requiem was celebrated in the church 
of his affection. He was a remarkable man, a companion- 
able, cultivated scholar and gentleman. 

My recollections of him are refreshing, and they come to 
me this evening so cheerily that I must ask you to share 
them with me. 

I was indebted to a " mutual friend," Mr. W. A. Seaver, 
formerly an editor, and now the worthy President of the 
Adriatic Fire Insurance Company, for my first acquaintance 
with Dr. Cummings. We were Mr. Seaver's guests at din- 
ner. A few moments after first speaking with him, for the 
grasp of his warm hand assured me he was ready for a cheer- 
ful word, I said to him : 

" Dr. Cummings, I take this, the first opportunity of meet- 
ing you, to beg your pardon for breaking open a letter of 
yours at my office." 

"Ah," said he, "how was that, I have forgotten it?" 

" Yes, a letter came to us with your name on it, and as 
one of our editors bore the same name as yours, he supposed 
it was for him and broke the. seal. But finding it was writ- 
ten in Latin and came from Rome, we concluded it must be 
for some one else, and we returned it to the post office." 

" Oh, yes," he replied, " I remember now, it was an Indul- 
gence we had sent for from the Pope, but probably you 



14 LREN^EUS LETTERS. 

needed it at your office more than we did, and so it went to 
you !" 

We were soon at the table, and it proved to be one of the 
early days of Lent. Our host made an apology, and said to 
Dr. Cummings : " Perhaps, as it is Lent, you abstain from 
meat?" 

" Oh, no, it's meet, meet, meeting all the time," he said ; 
" and without meat we should be unequal to the duties of the 
season/' 



In conversing with me on the subject of newspaper-mak- 
ing, and especially the conflicts of the religious press, he re- 
ferred humorously to his own experience when he was a 
young man, and in the family of Bishop Hughes. He said: 

" The Bishop was at that time running a newspaper him- 
self, and I was his assistant ; he would sometimes come in 
when hard up for copy, and throwing down the New York 
Observer before me, would say, 'there, take that, and pitch 
in.'" 

To which, I — " And you always did as you were told, I be- 
lieve." 



Speaking of the power of music in church, he said to me : 
" I will undertake to fill any one of your churches to over- 
flowing every Sunday if you will let me provide the music." 

"Your music," I replied, "will not suit the taste of our 
people, who do not fancy the style of St. Stephen's." 

" But it shall be purely Protestant and Presbyterian : such 
music as you delight in ; adapted to your forms of worship 
and the wants of your people. Our music would drive away 
your congregations ; but music delights, and will always 
draw the crowd. I am very sure that your churches do not 
appreciate its value as a means of bringing the multitude to 
the house of God." 

" We spend money enough on it," I said ; " often as much 
on the choir as on the pulpit." 

" Very true, but you pay for that kind of music that does 
not accord with your service — it does not address itself to 



PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS. 15 

the sentiment, the sensibility, the emotional nature ; it is 
often an approach to the opera without reaching it — so that 
it is neither the one thing nor the other. Ours is artistic, in 
harmony with our ritual, addressing the imagination through 
the senses ; you appeal to the intellect and the heart, and 
need a music to match your services." 

These are a few only of the words we exchanged, but we 
met not long afterwards at his own table, in his own house. 
Fifteen or twenty gentlemen sat down ; all but four were 
priests or eminent laymen of the Romish Church. Dr. Cum- 
mings, at the head of the table, had two of us Protestants 
on one hand, and two on the other. The Austrian Consul 
presided at the other end of the long table. After we were 
seated, our host, looking along the rows of guests, remarked 
with great glee, 

" Now we have these Protestants, we'll roast them." 

I returned his smiles and said, " I thought we all belonged 
to the same sect." 

" And which ?" exclaimed some one. 

"The Society of Friends," said I, and they gave me a 
cheer along the line, and did not try to roast a Protestant. 

It was a memorable dinner. I made the acquaintance of 
several men of learning, travel and genius, whose friendship 
I prized. Among the books lying around was a volume of 
epitaphs composed by Dr. Cummings. He told me that his 
people constantly came to him for lines to put on the grave- 
stones of their children and friends, and he was obliged to 
make a book of them, so that they could take what pleased 
them. He gave me a copy, and I made a commendatory 
notice of it in the New York Observer. He remarked after- 
wards, to a friend of mine, that he did not suppose it possi- 
ble for a Protestant to speak so kindly of a Catholic produc- 
tion. As the epitaphs were the expression of human sym- 
pathy and love, the most of them were such as come from 
and to every aching heart. 

And by and by it came his time to die. He was in the 
prime and vigor of life when disease overtook him, and 
with slow approaches wore his life away. His constitu- 



l6 I REN ^E US LETTERS. 

tional cheerfulness never failed him. I think an invitation 
he gave to our friend, Mr. Seaver, has no example in the 
speech of dying men of ancient or modern times. Socrates 
conversed with his friends serenely. Philosophy and religion 
have both made death-beds cheerful. I have spoken of. Dr. 
Cummings' love of music and its exquisite culture at St. 
Stephen's. It was his pride and joy; and one who has no 
music in his soul cannot understand his dying words. Mr. 
Seaver was in the habit of seeing him almost daily, and each 
visit was now apparently to be the last. One day, as the 
end was very near and the two friends were parting, the 
dying said to the living, "Come to the funeral, the music 
will be splendid." 

And so it was ; and on each return of his death-day, January 
the 4th, the arches of St. Stephen's become anthems, and its 
walls are vocal with song, in memory of the departed pastor, 
an accomplished gentleman and genial friend. 



CHOOSING A MINISTER'S WIFE. 

A great innovation is proposed, and the beginning of a 
new Reformation dawns on the world ! 

Whether the people should choose their own pastors, or 
not, has been a vexed question in the Church through the 
ages. In the Papal Church the parish takes the pastor sent. 
In the Church of England the pastorate is a property which 
the owner bestows on the minister he is pleased to name. 
Patrons have only very lately ceased to appoint pastors in 
Scotland. The Methodist Bishop in this country saith to 
one minister go, and he goeth, and the people accept the 
gift. 

When the Pope set up to be Infallible, a number of priests 
and people in Europe were unable to swallow the absurdity, 
and went off by themselves. They like to be called Old 
Catholics, because they hold to the faith as it was before 



CHOOSING A MINISTER'S WIFE. 17 

the modern heresy broke out. They have gradually intro- 
duced changes into their church order, and in the direction 
of greater liberality and conformity to the teaching of Holy 
Scripture. 

" Forbidding to marry" is one of the marks of an apostate 
Church. Only a Church that had set itself up against the 
express will of God would command its ministers to trample 
on the holy ordinance of marriage, and make a virtue of 
celibacy. This the Church of Rome has done, and by this 
wicked law it has made itself, as the Rev. J. B. Brown of 
London says, " worse than the world it ought to save." 

The reformers who are now seeking to build up a new 
reformation in the heart of Europe have made an onset upon 
this rule of clerical celibacy. They have had a Synod in 
which the subject was discussed long and learnedly, and so 
strong is prejudice, and so bound are they to the traditions 
of their Church, it was with the greatest difficulty they could 
be brought to release themselves from the cruel yoke. And 
when at last it was carried that priests might marry, it was 
coupled with a strange provision that we, enjoying the liberty 
of those whom Christ makes free, are not able easily to un- 
derstand. They resolved in Synod to permit priests to marry, 
but it was required that " the wife shall be acceptable to the con- 
gregation and to the Bishop, a7id shall be approved by them!' 

It would be a curious canvass in a country congregation, 
or a city one either, when the sense of the people was taken 
on the acceptability of the lady whom the pastor proposes to 
make his wife. If she were a member of the flock there 
never would be agreement. If she were not a member how 
would they ascertain her qualities ? A preacher can come on 
trial, or a committee can go and hear him, see him, weigh 
and measure him, and report the result to the congregation. 
But now just suppose a committee of ladies is sent from 
New Jersey to ascertain the merits of the lady in Vermont 
whom their pastor wishes to marry. They can talk with her, 
and ask the neighbors what manner of woman she is, and in- 
spect her school diploma and read some of her old compo- 
sitions, and get her photograph, but after all it is precious 



18 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

little they will be able to report as to her ability to "keep 
house" for the minister, or to get up a church fair, or to eke 
out a poor salary, that is rather diminished than increased as 
the number of backs to be clothed and mouths to be fed is 
quadrupled. 

And then the question comes up if the people or the 
bishop ought to meddle in the matter. What business of 
theirs is it? If the pastor and his wife are mutually satis- 
fied, is it the right or duty of anybody else to interfere ? 

But it is one of the peculiarities of our church life, espe- 
cially in the rural village or district, that the young wife of the 
pastor is claimed as a part of the church property, to be talked 
about, criticised, instructed, sat upon, dissected and pulled 
to pieces, at the sweet will of the congregation. When the 
pastor has brought to his people a wife whom God has en- 
dowed with gifts to be a wise and useful leader in the work of 
the church, it will be her joy to use her gifts, and to be much 
in the service. But she may be better fitted for a " keeper at 
home ;" to make the house the abode of order and peace and 
health, and the solace, inspirerand helpmeet for her husband. 
Thus she may be a greater blessing to the people than one 
who is always " on the go." Some wives combine the two 
in one, and some are neither. The Lord did not ordain 
wives for his disciples. We are told that a bishop must have 
one wife, not that he must have none, nor two. And we are 
not instructed as to the qualities of a minister's wife, as we 
are in regard to his own qualifications. 

Happy is that people whose pastor is blessed with a pru- 
dent wife, because he is blessed in her. But she is not the 
people's wife. She is not called by them. They were not al- 
lowed a voice in her selection. She has no salary. But she 
delights in the ministry of the saints. She is a pattern in 
her own house, and according to the measure of her strength 
she goes about doing good. 

But it is a grand mistake to suppose that she is not the 
very best wife a pastor can have who makes his house what 
it should be. Did you ever think of the worry, the wear and 
tear, of that minister who has to look after his house and 



CHOOSING A MINISTER'S WlFE. 1 9 

parish too ? And of the peace and power of that preacher 
who can give himself wholly to the work of the ministry be- 
cause his wife takes joyfully the burden of domestic life upon 
her tender hands ? 

A lawyer, now worth a large property, lost his wife a few 
days ago. Before she was buried 1 called in sympathy with 
him, and he began at once to tell me how he began his prac- 
tice with no money and no friend but the poor girl who 
loved him, and had for thirty years managed all his domestic 
affairs without his giving them a thought. Business, wealth, 
friends, children were added, and his wife had been the stew- 
ard while he had attended to the work in the world. Far 
more than a lawyer does a pastor need a wife like that. 

I do not believe the congregation, nor a bishop, nor a town 
meeting, could pick out a wife for anybody. And when we 
remember that the first and highest of all things to be 
thought of in the marriage relation is mutual affection, and 
without it religion, sense and beauty are not enough, it is 
ridiculous to talk about the congregation having a voice in 
the choice of a wife for the pastor. 

It does not speak very well for the Old Catholics that they 
are spending their time in such matters as this, when the 
weightier matters of the gospel are at stake. But they are 
improving. It was something to agree to get married. Other 
improvements will follow. Rome was not built in a day, and 
Rome will not be destroyed in a day. 

To a minister's wife I wrote, to comfort her, these words: 

TO A MINISTER'S WIFE. 

I have read your letter with serious attention. You ex- 
press a wish that Paul had written an epistle to Mrs. Tim- 
othy, and as he did not, you ask me to supply his lack of 
service. Thank you, but I must be excused. I couldn't 
think of supplementing that distinguished letter writer. 
But the fact that he did not write to her, nor to the wives of 
ministers as a class, is very significant. 

You say that you are expected and required to be the 



20 1RENA^.US LETTERS. 

bearer of a large part of the burdens of the female work in 
the church : to superintend Lhe societies, to lead the ladies' 
meetings, to visit the sick, to receive constant applications 
for directions to the women of the flock, and in general to 
see to it that the " female department" of your husband's 
pastoral charge is kept in vigorous repair and running order. 

I was quite amused (pardon me for being amused by any- 
thing that gave you distress) by your account of the call 
which Mrs. Alltalk made upon you, and with her remark that 
your first duty is to the church, and your spare time may be 
devoted to your children and the house. You ask me if you 
were right in saying that you " married your husband and 
not the church," and that " your children, not your neigh- 
bors, were the gift of God to you." 

Yes, madam, you were right : just right. And if you re- 
plied to her with even more spirit than your meek words 
imply, I think you served her right. And what you failed 
to say, I will say for you, thus : 

The temptation and strong desire of every pastor's wife 
prompt her to do all she can to help him in his work, to 
serve the church and please the people. She is, usually, a 
woman of education, sense, and force, and by her position is 
readily put at the head of things without giving offence to 
any one; whereas, if Mrs. Alltalk or Mrs. Fidget is made the 
leader, half the women in the parish are put out because 
they were not put in. As the pastor is the best taught man, 
so his wife is apt to be the best qualified woman to teach, 
lead, guide and quicken. So, trusts are easily laid upon her, 
and her temptation is to accept them to the extent of her 
strength ; yes, and beyond her strength. But her relations 
to the pastor and to the church, and to Christ its head, are 
not such as to require any service from her that is incompat- 
ible with fidelity to the nearer and more sacred trust of hus- 
band and household. Home is the church to which she was 
called, in which she was ordained and installed, to which she 
is to minister with her whole heart and soul, and for which 
she will be called to as strict an account as her husband will 
be for the service he has rendered in the pulpit. When the 



CHOOSING A MINISTER'S WIFE. 21 

younger class of married women are taught in the Bible, 
they are told " to be sober, to love their husbands, to love 
their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good 
obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be 
not blasphemed. ,: This counsel and these commands are 
quite as pointedly addressed to the wives of ministers, as to 
the wives of merchants, farmers or mechanics. And if you 
ask M How am I to do all this, and what women of the 
church want me to do," I answer that " duties never come 
into conflict with each other." If you cannot be a keeper at 
home and a visitor of the sick in the parish, then your duty 
is to stay at home ; and to do only so much visiting as your 
domestic affairs, care of children and the house, will permit. 
Do not send Mrs. Alltalk or Mrs. Fidget, in your place, to 
see the sick. They will do more harm than good. But the 
pastor and the deacons, and the neighbors, will see that the 
sick are cared for, while you mind the little ones who are 
dependent upon you for daily care. And as to the sewing 
circles, and benevolent societies, and Sunday-schools, and 
all that, kind of good works, which every working church 
abounds in, you should not feel any responsibility which is 
not shared equally by all the ladies of the congregation. 
You will feel more. Nothing that I can say will convince 
you that you are in no sense called or set apart as a pas- 
toress. But you are not. You are the pastor's wife, not the 
female pastor. You took no vows upon you to serve the 
church ; you promised to be faithful to your husband. The 
Bible does not bid you teach, or to go visiting, or to manage 
the sewing societies ; but it does bid you to see to your own 
house, and to be a helpmeet for him who is the servant of 
the church. 

Comfort yourself then, madam, with these words. In the 
circle of which you are the centre, the light and the soul, 
you will work out the mission unto which you were sent, by 
Him who said to the disciples, " Go into all the world." 
Your ministry is to one of those disciples and the little dis- 
ciples that are around your feet. I am glad to know that 
you value the honor God shows you in putting you into 



2 2 IkEN^US LETTERS. 

such a ministry. It is the sweet gospel of love, of conjugal 
and maternal love, recognized of the Saviour when, on the 
cross, he turned his dying eye upon his own mother and 
said, " Behold thy son." John was to go with the gospel to 
the churches : to Patmos in exile : to the death of martyr- 
dom : but the woman was to go to his house. 

God has made everything beautiful in its time and place. 
His order is perfect. And when it is allowed to work itself 
out, the result is perfect : perfect peace, harmony, effi- 
ciency and love. Therefore, be of good cheer. Be faithful 
in a few things, and the many things will be cared for of 
Him who careth for us. And when Mrs. Alltalk calls again 
to sting you with her impertinence, and to make you feel 
miserable because you cannot be in three places at one time, 
ask her to read this letter while you are getting the chil- 
dren's supper ready. 



HIS GRANDFATHER'S BARN. 

You may have heard of the " Old White Meeting House." 
It was in Cambridge, Washington county, N. Y. Every- 
body in that region of country knew it, and the " Corners" 
on which it stood were famous as the scene of town meet- 
ings, general trainings, and travelling shows. Some fifty 
years ago the Rev. William Lusk was settled as pastor of 
that church. He was about 28 years old. His face, that in- 
dicated intellect and force, was marvellous for its classic 
beauty, and, while he was preaching, it lighted up with a 
smile and radiance that, to my youthful fancy, was the face 
of an angel. I am quite sure that no preacher ever ap- 
peared to me more seraphic than William Lusk when, on the 
wings of holy passion and thought, he soared among the 
lofty truths of the gospel. His sermons were written out 
with great care and rhetorical beauty. They were delivered 
with energy and without mannerism, but with a naturalness 
that was unusual in the pulpit of that day. The people were 






HIS GRANDFATHER'S BARN. 2$ 

delighted with him. A great revival of religion was enjoyed. 
More than one hundred persons were received into the 
church on one communion Sabbath. In a rural congrega- 
tion, or any other, such a large accession was remarkable. 
He had come to Cambridge from a place in Massachusetts, 
where, he said, there was no need of his staying, for all the 
people were converted. It looked as though all the people 
in Cambridge would be converted also. 

But the Old White Meeting House was very old. How old 
I cannot say. Few, if any, then living saw its timbers laid. 
It was very shaky now. Inside it had never been painted. 
The pews were square, so that half the people sat with their 
backs to the preacher. The windows were loose and rattled, 
and the bleak winds of winter rushed in at many a chink, and 
the one stove in the centre aisle roasted those near it, but 
served only to rarify the air a little, so that the outside winds 
drove in the more furiously. The winters were very severe 
in that part of the country. We often had the mercury 
twenty below zero, and even thirty was not unknown. 

This antiquated and dilapidated house was a sore trial to 
the young and eloquent pastor. Much did he meditate upon 
the ways and means to get a better. Perhaps he took coun- 
sel of Sidney Wells, George W. Jermain, Deacon Crocker, or 
others. More likely he did not, for he was apt to take his 
own way, and keep it. But the fire burned within him, and 
all the more fiercely as the winter became more severe. At 
last it broke out. 

It was a terribly cold day. The farmers had come to 
church in their sleighs, which were housed under the long 
shed in the rear of the church ; horses were carefully done 
up in blankets; the women had their foot-stoves filled with 
hot coals, over which they toasted their toes : the men were 
wrapped in their overcoats, and were cold. The pastor 
stood in the pulpit and shivered. He looked down upon the 
people and then around upon the walls of the house as if he 
had never seen them before, and after a silence that led 
the congregation to wonder what was coming, he remarked : 

1 My grandfather has a barn" — the people were startled in 



24 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

their seats at the announcement of a fact so very probable 
indeed, but apparently very slightly connected with the ser- 
vice now in progress : he paused for them to recover, and 
began again : 

" My grandfather has a barn that is altogether better for a 
place to worship God in than this house." Amazement sat 
on the faces of the people. Half a century many of them 
had worshipped the God of their fathers in that venerated 
house. There they had consecrated their children to His 
service: there they had been taught the way of life and found 
it, so that of many it might be said, "this man was born 
there." To be told now, and in that pulpit, that any man had 
a barn that was better than that church was nearly enough 
to drive them mad. Mr. Lusk paused a moment to see the 
effect of the first shot, and then, with some calmness, he 
went on to give the obvious reasons why the congregation 
should build a new house of worship. He had no difficulty 
in making out a clear case, and his words fell like fire on the 
heart. It was plain, before he was done, that the knell of 
the Old White Meeting House was tolling. After service 
the people talked the matter over, and it was admitted on all 
hands that the matter must be thought of, if nothing 
more. 

The next Sabbath Mr. Lusk took up the subject in a set 
sermon on the duty of having a fit place for public worship. 
In the course of few days the congregation were wide awake, 
some/br, and some against the proposal. But the for was 
the larger party. It became very evident that the opposition 
came from those whose old associations with the house made 
it very painful to tear it down, and make all things new. 
This was a holy sentiment, but it ought not to stand in the 
way of a movement manifestly made necessary by the decay 
of the old house, and the demand for a new and better one. 
If the zeal of the building party abated, it was easily stimu- 
lated by an allusion to a barn belonging to an ancestor of 
the pastor. The work was begun before the spring was 
fairly open. Money was subscribed. Materials were given. 
Bees were held for drawing stone and timber. And so it 



CALLING BAD NAMES. 25 

came to pass that, by one and another means, and without 
going to New York or even to Albany for help, the new 
house was built, very comfortable, neat and appropriate. I 
had the pleasure of preaching in it within the first year of 
my ministry. 

Mr. Lusk, with genius, power, industry and success in the 
ministry, was never so prominent in the Church and the 
country as many men are with less than half his ability and 
learning. This was the result of eccentricities that were per- 
sonally pleasing to his intimate friends, making him an en- 
tertaining companion, but detracting somewhat from his 
public influence. Probably these traits did not appear in 
his later life as they did when his reputation was forming. 
But there is no wrong, and there may be usefulness, in men- 
tioning the fact now, as a hint to young preachers. Mr. 
Lusk was a pure, good man, of splendid natural gifts im- 
proved by careful study. And many souls brought by him to 
the knowledge of the truth are his crown of rejoicing now. 



CALLING BAD NAMES. 

Some time ago a religious newspaper No. 1, in the midst 
of a controversial article, called another, No. 2, Pecksniff. 
Not long afterwards No. 3 in similar discussion, called No. 1 
Pecksniff. A week or two ago, No. 4, under the same cir- 
cumstances, applied the same term to No. 3. It now re- 
mains for No. 2 to call No. 3 Pecksniff, and the quartette 
will be full. It is not likely to be ; for No. 2, " that's me," 
has too many sins of its own to be casting stones at its 
neighbors. We have all done the things we ought not to 
have done. And human nature is so weak, and there is so 
much human nature in folks, there is no telling how soon 
we may so far fall from grace as to do the thing that seems 
the most unseemly. 

When the word Pecksniff was used as a term of re- 



26 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

proach, 1 took " Martin Chuzzlewit" from a shelf neaf me, and 
studied the pen and ink portrait of Mr. Pecksniff, by Dickens. 
Familiar as I had been with the general features of his face 
and character, he revealed fresh and startling points as 
viewed with eyesight sharpened by the fraternal assurance 
that he was reproduced in my immediate vicinity. Mr. 
Dickens had drawn this character with masterly skill to 
illustrate and emphasize the Hypocrite and Humbug. 
Neither of these words alone expresses the condensed char- 
acter of Mr. Pecksniff. The evil, the devil that our Lord 
said Judas was, is in a hypocrite; the humbug may want 
the malice, while he is no less an impostor and deceiver. 
Both these unlovely and detestable characters rolled into 
one, wrought out Pecksniff. I heard Mr. Vandenhoff read 
some passages from the story a few days ago, and saw the 
character more vividly even than I did when listening to 
similar scenes enacted by the author himself. 

But in hearing or in reading or merely in remembering 
them, the idea of Pecksniff is that of such a consummate 
scoundrel, that one has hardly patience to believe that the 
world tolerates such fellows in society ; and no one will be- 
lieve, until he sees the evidence around him, that such men 
do succeed, where solid merit starves. What then must be 
the estimate in which we hold a man, a Christian, a fellow- 
citizen, a co-worker, when we hurl at him the epithet, as a 
title that expresses our whole opinion of him in one word, 
Pecksniff? 

We are now passing through a political campaign. It is 
indeed a campaign, itself a term borrowed from the language 
of war, where and when on the champaign, or the campagna, 
the missiles of words instead of bullets have been hurled by 
the combatants. And what words ! It was a fair commen- 
tary on our political warfare which was made by an intelli- 
gent English gentlemen, writing home from this country 
during a Presidential campaign, "that it was evident the 
two worst men in the whole land had been put in nomina- 
tion for the highest office in the gift of the people." And 
what is even more remarkable, we seem to be wholly uncon- 



CALLING BAD NAMES. 27 

scious ourselves that we are thus offending the laws of taste, 
charity and common morality. One of the newspapers 
when speaking of its neighbor as Pecksniff, had on the 
same page a lovely essay on the sin and folly of personali- 
ties. And this evening, with my after dinner cup, I read in 
the paper yet damp from the press, a leading editorial justly 
censuring calumny and falsehood by which our best men are 
assailed, and in the next column, parallel with these just 
words, is another editorial in which " lying" and " bigotry" 
and "fanaticism" are imputed to religious men who oppose 
the editor's views. 

I cite these examples because they are here before me, of 
present and pressing interest, flagrant and sickening illustra- 
tions of that insensibility to our own vices which attends 
the keenest sight and scent of faults in others. O that our 
eyes had been so made as to enable us to see inwardly as 
well as outwardly ! But in the days of the Great Teacher, 
men went about the streets, with beams in their own eyes, 
trying to pick out little specks from the eyes of their neigh- 
bors. 

Nobody was ever convicted of error or converted from sin 
by being called a bad name. Many a man has been con- 
firmed in his wrong doing or wrong thinking by the insult 
he feels when a name of reproach is given him which he 
repudiates and resents. It is not impossible that wars, in 
which rivers of blood have been shed and thousands of lives 
and millions of treasure lost, might have- been averted and 
avoided, by the use of argument in the place of abusive 
words. It has sometimes occurred to me that we might 
have preserved the peace and accomplished all that has been 
gained of good, if we brethren of the North and the South, 
had heard and obeyed the call of the Lord, " Come now and 
let us reason together," instead of indulging in reproach, 
denunciation, vituperation, as the staple of internecine war- 
fare, until the cannon opened its mouth and drowned all 
talking in its deadly roar. 

It is not the way to convert a sinner to knock him down 
first and then reason with him. God struck Saul with light 



28 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

so that he fell from his horse. That kind of argument be- 
longs to the Lord " who alone doeth wondrous things." We 
cannot send light from heaven. We must approach men 
with the gentleness of persuasion while we know ourselves 
the terrors of the Lord. 

Terms of reproach become sometimes names of honor and 
are gloried in by those who wear them. Christians, so 
called first at Antioch, are now the leaders of thought and 
masters of nations. The cross is no longer a badge of 
shame. Puritan, Methodist, Huguenot, it matters not what, 
the name is nothing : there is no argument in it. Politicians 
try the power of bad names and find they amount to noth- 
ing : Christians, alas ! dishonor themselves by the same sin, 
and gain a loss by it. It is evil and only evil and that con- 
tinually. 

How ashamed we shall be of this kind of warfare when we 
are all together in the Father's house, with equal and un- 
merited glory on our brows ! And this reminds me : 

Some years ago I had a war of words with a man who did 
not see with me about — well, it was of so little importance 
that I cannot now remember what we quarrelled about. But 
we waxed warm, hurled at each other the hardest words we 
could find in the dictionary ; then ceased to be on speaking 
terms, and met in silence or passed with no sign of recogni- 
tion. I went abroad, and in the Vale of Chamouni was 
lodging in a hotel at the foot of Mont Blanc, the monarch 
of mountains, crowned with snow. Having arrived at even- 
ing, and knowing that sunrise was the most favored hour for 
beholding the greatest glory that mortal eyes may see, I 
arose before the sun and, throwing my blanket around me, 
went out — the ground was covered with snow — to catch the 
first view of sunlight on the summit. As I stepped from 
the door on one side of the court, a stranger, similarly robed 
and on the same errand bent, emerged from an opposite 
door ; we met midway in the yard, and stopped before the 
glory then to be revealed. He was my foe in the war of 
words. With a hearty laugh and glad recognition, as if we 
had been friends from childhood, we shook hands, and stood, 






CALLING BAD NAMES. 29 

alone and at one, before the Majesty of God in the works of 
his hand. The king of day was rising ; now the peak was 
glistening in his beams, and then along and down the sheeted 
sides of the monarch fell the robes of sunlight, dazzling in 
splendor as if the floor of heaven had given away, and the 
golden beams were coming down to men. We both thought 
of the Sunrise Hymn of Coleridge in this vale, and one of 
us said : 

" Companion of the morning star at dawn, 
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
Co-herald ! Wake, oh wake and utter praise." 

We went into the breakfast room, called for our coffee and 
rolls, and, breaking bread together, forgot we ever had a 
fight, and were good enough friends ever after. He has 
since passed through another valley into the presence of the 
great white throne of which Mont Blanc, with the sun for its 
crown, is the faintest emblem, yet the most glorious we shall 
see till we stand before the other ! 

And just now I have received a letter that gives me a 
touch of the pain that calling bad names causes even in a 
man who has had so many hurled at him that he ought to 
be used to them. It is not a thorn in the flesh, as St. Paul 
had, but it comes from St. Paul in Minnesota — from a gen- 
tleman of that city, who informs me that he is a jobber in 
supplies for pump dealers, plumbers, gas and steam fitters, 
mills and railroads, steam and hot air heating apparatus, reg- 
isters and ventilators, gas fixtures, pumps, hose, iron pipe, 
lead pipe, sheet lead, bath tubs, sinks, brass and iron fittings, 
etc., etc. He writes these words : 

11 Reading ' Irenaeus Letters,' I should judge him to be as fat and unctu- 
ous as his style — fond of the pleasant ways of life and taking unkindly to 
the martyr's crown, except by pleasant reference in jaunty style in his snug 
office or at the mansion of a wealthy entertainer." 

What an amiable man he must be to write like that ! He 
thinks I am " fat and unctuous ;" there he is wrong: " fond 
of the pleasant ways of life ;" there he is right — wisdom's 
ways are pleasantness and all her paths are peace : I like 



30 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

them : he thinks I would take " unkindly to the martyr's 
crown." which is quite probable ; we know not what we are 
till the trial comes. Grace according to our day is the pro- 
mised help. To be played upon by one who deals in " Hot- 
air heating apparatus, pumps, hose, iron pipe, sheet lead, and 
brass fittings," may fit me to bear racks and thumb-screws, 
and chains and gridirons, by which better men than either 
of us have been helped into heaven. We cannot all be 
martyrs : but there is no good reason why we should not be 
gentlemen and Christians. If I had another life to live and 
two thousand letters to write again, with God's good help I 
would not hurt the feelings of the humblest of all God's 
creatures honestly trying to do good. He might be as big 
as Daniel Lambert, and I would not call him fat and unc- 
tuous : he might be as lean as Calvin Edson, and I would not 
call him a bag of bones. I would count each day lost on 
which I had not made some hearts gladder than they were 
in the morning ; on which I had not plucked up some thorns, 
or planted some flowers on the path of human life. No man 
can so live without enjoying life. Dogs will snarl at him, but 
angels are around him. He may never have riches or fame, 
but better than both are friends and God. My St. Paul friend 
is trying to serve his Master in honest trade : if riches in- 
crease, my prayer is that he may never be pained by receiving 
a letter like his own. 



NEW ENGLAND HOMES AND GRAVES. 

MRS. EASTMAN'S FAMOUS RIDE. 

Nothing touches me more painfully, in the romantic 
rural region of New England, than to see large and comfort- 
able houses empty and decaying. I have just returned from 
a drive of ten miles over the country, and have seen several of 
them. One was a spacious mansion, with a large courtyard 
filled with great trees and luxuriant shrubbery and vines, 



NEW ENGLAND HOMES AND GRAVES. 31 

showing that in years gone by it had been the abode of 
wealth, refinement and taste. Now it was windowless and 
shattered. Rank vegetation choked the walks and gardens. 
I passed three or four such deserts on this one drive. They 
are more or less frequent in many parts of New England. 
Commercial and manufacturing places and the more fertile 
lands of the West seduce the inhabitants to emigrate. The 
tendency of things is out of, not into, these rural regions. 
If the population of the State increases or holds its own, it 
is in the growth of villages and cities. And as one passes 
these vacant dwellings — which could now be bought, with 
plenty of land about them, for a trifle — he thinks of the 
home life that has been enjoyed within them, the fireside, 
the family, the birth of children, their childish glees, the 
joys and trials of this world of work and care. If the stones 
in the hearth or the beams of the wall were to speak, what 
tales they could tell of domestic and social life in these halls 
now given up to bats and owls ! 

THE FIRST PASTOR.'S GRAVE. 

We went into the oldest graveyard in the town of Gilman- 
ton, N. H. It lies on a plateau, from which we have a wide 
and lovely view ; it was laid out in 1776, when the first inter- 
ment took place. The first church in the town was near it, 
and one still remains, but no pastor looks after the scattered 
and diminished flock. A new school-house, with the best 
modern furniture in it, shows that these people will have the 
means of education. It was an impressive hour among the 
graves of this congregation, a far larger one than now lives. 
The first settlers of the town are here. In the middle of the 
enclosure, with a brick monument over him, is the grave of 
the first pastor, the Rev. Isaac Smith : a man of great re- 
nown, whose fame is still a part of the wealth of Gilmanton. 
He studied with Dr. Bellamy, and was with Dr. Wheelock 
at Dartmouth College when that President was wont to call 
the students together by blowing a tin horn. In the habit 
of preaching carefully written sermons, he finally laid them 






32 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

aside and preached extemporaneously "with great power 
and eloquence." And of him it was said : " Justice, truth, 
mercy and goodness shone in his character." He was a 
Princeton (N. J.) College graduate. On the top of the mon- 
ument is a slate slab covered with an appropriate inscription 
and these lines by way of epitaph : 

4 ' Life speeds away, 
From point to point, tho' seeming to stand still ; 
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth ; 
Too subtle is the movement to be seen, 
Yet soon man's hour is up, and we are gone." 

He died in 1817, aged 72; and his wife, who sleeps by his 
side, died at the same age eleven years after his death. 

A SPIRITUALISTIC GRAVESTONE. 

Capt. Daniel Gale, a worthy citizen, whose grandfather, 
Bartholomew Gale, came from England to Boston, died and 
was buried here in 1801. His wife Patience died also in 
1804. They were buried side by side, and a suitable stone 
was set to mark their graves. This was nearly 80 years ago. 
There are older gravestones than theirs in this venerable 
enclosure, and the more ancient the more interesting is a 
monument in the eyes of all sensible people. But all peo- 
ple are not sensible, and one of the descendants of this 
Daniel Gale was foolish enough to become a Spiritualist. 
While enjoying its nonsense, she received a communication 
from the long dead Daniel that he wanted a new gravestone 
over his bones. She was obedient unto the revelation. It 
was not much of a stone that she caused to be put up, but it 
is large enough to receive the name of the Captain and his 
wife, and to say when they went "to the Spirit Land." Then 
the inscription follows : " Love, Wisdom and Progression." 
I hope that no mischievous dealer in gravestones will take a 
hint from this to employ a medium to instigate the present 
generation to have their ancestors' tombs done over. 



NEW ENGLAND HOMES AND GRAVES, 33 



ROMANCE AND REALITY. 

Real life has tragedies and episodes and secret histories 
more remarkable than fiction invents. If any spot in the 
world could be free from all romantic incidents, this secluded 
region might be quiet, uniform and natural. It is so for the 
most part, and years may speed their course without any 
event to make a ripple on the surface of society. 

. But we rode by one lone house ^to-day which has its story . 
The owner of it, when a young man, a prosperous, promis- 
ing farmer, was disappointed in love. He took it so much 
to heart that it went to his head. He became mildly de- 
ranged. Unable to manage his affairs, the farm fell into the 
hands of relatives, who took care of it and him. He did 
nothing but walk around and around his house, in one 
uniform circle. His footsteps made a path which he never 
left but to go into the house, when he rested from his circu- 
lar course, to resume his walk on the morrow. Years and 
years revolved with his revolving pilgrimage, and still he 
travelled on. All the years of his strong life wore away, 
and old age came with white hair and beard, making his 
journey more pitiable in the eyes of friends, who, passing by, 
would be unnoticed by him on his dreary travel. And so 
he marched on, until the silver cord was loosed and the 
wheel at the cistern stood still. 

In this meadow, the history of the town records, the wife 
of one of the well-known citizens was killed by lightning 
while raking hay on the Sabbath day. By her death these 
lines were suggested : 

" It was upon the holy Sabbath day, 
When she went forth to rake the new-mown hay ; 
The forked lightning fell upon her head, 
And she was quickly numbered with the dead." 

Here Mr. Drew froze to death. In this house "a child of 
Capt. Page was chocked with beans going down the windpipe 
and died in seven hours." A little lake lies at the foot of 






34 IREN^US LETTERS, 

the old meeting-house hill, and the records state: "1809, 

May 28. A man, , ran out of the meeting-house, 

threw himself into the pond, and was drowned." It seems 
to me justice to the preacher required that the cause of his 
rushing out should be stated : couldn't he stand the preach- 
ing ; or did the eloquence of the stalwart Isaac Smith, who 
was then the pastor, stir his conscience so that in remorse he 
ran from the house of God and plunged into the placid 
bosom of the convenient pond ? 

I rode along by the side of this peaceful water and came 
to the house concerning which another sad story is written : 

" 181 9, Oct. 16. Polly chocked herself by tying a garter 

round her neck." And even more minutely is described the 
melancholy mode of Mrs. Barter's departure in 1826: "She 
hung herself on the Sabbath, behind the door, in a dark 
closet." And so recently as in 1844, a man who bore the 
same name with the second President of the United States 
" hung himself in his barn, by a cord twisted from new-made 
hay, of only eight blades." And the venerable Daniel Lan- 
caster, author of the History of Gilmanton, and now resi- 
dent in the city of New York, relates with like minuteness 
no less than 82 fatal accidents or suicides in this one town 
before the year 1845. Many doubtless occurred that are not 
included in this register, which was closed 35 years ago! 
Such is human life in the most favorable circumstances for 
health, peace and sweet content. 

MARY BUTLER EASTMAN'S RIDE. 

In a desert field near the roadside we saw a hollow, in 
which was growing a small tree. The turf now covers the 
ruins of a dwelling, and the site is marked by this hole, 
which once was the cellar. A friend who was with me 
said : 

'There Mary Butler, Mrs. Eastman, lived, when she took 
the famous ride." 

"Tell me the story, please." 

" It is a tale of the Revolution. At the very opening of 






ttEW ENGLAND HOMES AND GRAVES. 35 

the war this town of Gilmanton was wide awake, and had 
her delegate, Col. Antipas Gilman, in the Convention, and 
twelve men from this town, volunteers, were in the front at 
Bunker Hill. Lieutenant Ebenezer Eastman left his young 
wife and their first-born infant in the house that stood on 
this spot, and led this little band to battle. Boston is 90 
miles away, but it is said that on the 17th of June, 1775, 
when the battle of Bunker Hill was raging, the sound of 
the cannon was distinctly heard. There was no way of 
getting speedy intelligence, but the news soon came that a 
great battle had been fought and Lieut. Eastman had been 
slain. The wife was in church attending public worship 
when the dreadful report was made. But she would not 
give credit to it till she had it confirmed. Returning home, 
she saddled a horse, took her only child, an infant, on the 
saddle in front of her, and rode through the forests, along 
the bridle-paths, and in some places guided only by trees 
that had been blazed. Forty miles of her lonely journey 
were travelled when she reached her father's house at Brent- 
wood. She had expected to hear the truth, whatever it was, 
when this first half of her ride was accomplished. But they 
had heard only that a great battle hard been fought. The 
fate of her husband was still in the dark. Here she spent 
the night, and in the morning, leaving the child with her 
friends, she resumed her saddle, and dashed on another 40 
or 50 miles to Charlestown and the arms of her gallant hus- 
band, whom she found alive and well, one of the heroes of 
Bunker Hill. 

" That was the feat that is celebrated in song and story as 
Mary Butler's ride. Butler was her maiden name, and was 
dropped when she married. She is not known by that name 
in these parts. We will soon come to the graveyard where 
she was buried. And as we are riding, I will repeat the 
names of the eleven children that Mary had, ten of them 
being born after that memorable journey on horseback to 
find out whether she was a wife or a widow : their names 
were Abigail, who was on the saddle with her, Ebenezer, 
Stephen, Samuel, Nehemiah, Sally, Ira Allen, Polly, Shuah, 



3<5 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

Dolly, and William Butler. And now we have come to the 
graveyard, and the grave is in the northeast corner." 

I left the carriage. The gate was fastened (in a manner 
quite common in the country) with a stake slanted up 
against it from the outside, and wading through the rank 
weeds and grass to the spot, I found the headstone easily. 
On it was inscribed only these words : " To the memory of 
Mary Eastman, wife of the late Lieut. Ebenezer Eastman, 
obt. Dec. 13, 1832, set. 78 yrs. Blessed are the dead that die 
in the Lord." 

By the side of her grave is that of her husband, who died 
38 years before her, and on his headstone is this inscription : 

"In memory of Ebenezer Eastman, obt. Oct. 27, 1794. JEt. 48 years. 
He was one of the first settlers in Gilmanton. He commanded in the 
Battle of Bunker Hill. He died in early life, but died in the triumphs of 
faith. That life is long enough that answers life's great end." 



TAXING A CHILD'S BRAIN. 

A case of remarkable memory, of great folly and atrocious 
cruelty, is brought to my knowledge. There is no doubt 
that the facts are as you will now read them, and you will 
be prepared, when you have read them, to believe with me 
that the party in fault deserves severe censure, and perhaps 
punishment. But the case ought to be made public as a 
warning to teachers and parents and children. 

In a class of one of our Sabbath-schools was a girl of fine 
promise, bright, studious, serious, and fond of the school 
and the Bible, which she read with attention. She was in 
the habit of committing large portions of it to memory, and 
reciting them with fluency and correctness. This led her 
teacher to encourage the child, exciting her pride and ambi- 
tion, as well as fostering the idea that nothing was too hard 



TAXING A CHILD'S BRAIN. 37 

for her to accomplish. A few weeks ago the teacher pro- 
posed to the girl to commit to memory the Proper names in 
the Bible so as to repeat them at one recitation ! ! ! 

Anything more absurd, more foolish, and more cruel in 
the way of a Sabbath-school lesson, it would be hard to 
invent. No possible benefit could be derived from the 
knowledge were it obtained. What good would it do for a 
minister or anybody else to be able to repeat all the names 
of men, women, cities, countries, rivers and peoples men- 
tioned in the Bible ? If the child had a concordance of the 
Scriptures, in which all these words are arranged as in a dic- 
tionary, she could work at them more readily than by taking 
them as they stand in the Bible itself. But it is quite likely 
that it would aid the memory to use the text of the Bible, 
and have the association with chapters and verses. I am 
not informed as to the mode in which she undertook to 
work out the useless task. But she came to her class as 
usual, and the pious teacher, taking the Bible in hand, lis- 
tened and watched, while the little martyr stood up bravely 
to the torture and went through it from beginning to end ! 
And swooned away. On recovery she was led home to 
her mother, a pitiable, perhaps ruined child. 

Now I have no words of indignation adequate to express 
the censure which this injudicious teacher deserves for in- 
flicting such a task upon a child, or permitting -her to under- 
take it, or even allowing her to repeat the result of it. It 
may be that the teacher will say the child proposed it, or 
performed it of her own choice without being told to do it. 
But it is of little moment whether this particular task was 
self-imposed or not: the girl was made a martyr to her 
memory, being encouraged in these feats until she taxed her 
brain to a degree that will probably result in life-long weak- 
ness, if not early death. It would have been quite as wise, 
Christian and kind, to have put the child in a walking-match, 
to see if she could walk six days running. The physical 
strain would soon show for itself the injury done, and the 
victim would be rescued. The mental strain does not appear 
in the suffering until the task is accomplished, and then 



3% IRENMUS LETTERS. 

comes the reaction, revealing the fatal effects of the folly 
and the sin. 

In Sabbath-schools, as a general rule, the child's memory 
is not employed as much as it should be. Instead of, or in 
connection with, answers to questions in a book, every child 
ought to repeat at least six verses of Holy Scripture every 
Sabbath day. This may be easily attained by the admirable 
habit of learning one verse every day in the week, reviewing 
and repeating them all on the Sabbath morning, and then 
going with them to the school, there to be recited to the 
teachers. These verses thus treasured will be more precious 
than rubies as long as life lasts. In this way I learned in 
childhood some of the Psalms that are now like pearls. 
" Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
dwell together in unity," was one of them ; the 23d Psalm, 
and the 139th, were also learned in the same way, and — 
mark this — what portions of Scripture I did not learn then, 
I have never learned. The study of the Bible since has 
doubtless made me acquainted more and more with its 
meaning, its breadth and depth and power : but when I woo 
repose, or seek communion with the Author, or would soar 
into regions of divine contemplation, the portions of God's 
word that were ingrafted before I was twelve years old, re- 
fresh me as did the old oaken bucket that hung in the well, 
when, a heated and wearied boy, I took its waters on my 
parched lips. Sweet as, yes, sweeter than the honey-comb 
are words that have lived in memory half a century, while 
they who taught me are with David and Mary in the king- 
dom of glory. It would be a blessed reaction and reform if 
our Sabbath-schools would encourage and require every 
scholar to commit to memory six verses of the Bible every 
week. 

But that does not mitigate the folly of the teacher who 
puts upon a child the absurd task of learning to repeat by 
rote the Proper names of the Bible ! It may be that her 
memory was of that abnormal type which easily retains vast 
sums and sounds without associating with them thoughts. 
Persons have been known to repeat whole columns of a news- 



TAXING A CHILD'S BRAIN. 39 

paper after once hearing them read. Cyrus knew the name 
of each soldier in his mighty army. Shepherds have had a 
name for each sheep in a great flock. Pastors have been able 
to call each of their many lambs by name. A lady near me 
repeated every word of the Shorter Catechism on the day she 
was five years old. I can now repeat the exceptions to the 
rule under the 3d declension of Latin nouns ending in e of 
the Ablative case, though I have not seen them since early 
childhood, and we used to say there were more exceptions than 
examples. But all these are as nought compared with the 
silly task of pressing on the brain of a poor child more than 
2,000 Proper nouns, that cannot be used when learned, and 
which no sensible person ever tried to learn. Just take a lit- 
tle slice out of the lesson. There are 28 names in the Bible 
beginning with the letter O, viz.: Obadiah, Obal, Obed, 
Obed-Edom, Obil, Ocran, Oded, Og, Ohel, Olympas, Omar, 
Omega, Omri, On, Onan, Onesimus, Onesiphorus, Ophel, 
Ophir, Ophrah, Oreb, Orion, Oman, Orpah, Othni, Othniel, 
Ozem, Ozias. How long would it take you to master that 
short list ? It is very easy to get the run of words that have 
some principle of association among them. "Peter Piper 
picked a peck of pickled peppers : where is the peck of pic- 
kled peppers that Peter Piper picked ?" is easier to learn than 
to say. The 119th Psalm, in the original, is divided into sec- 
tions, each beginning with the letter at the head of the divis- 
ion, and thus that longest of the Psalms was more easily 
learned. There are systems of mnemonics, artificial aids of 
more or less use according to one's taste or needs. The very 
simple rule is "the strength with which two ideas, words, or 
things, stick together in the memory, is in the inverse ratio 
of their phrenotypic distance." You understand that, and all 
you have to do is to apply it and you will remember almost 
anything else. 

Have mercy on the children. Spare their infant brains the 
labor of holding what is of no value, and may greatly injure 
them. When I see children on the street taking home their 
books, maps, &c, after five or six hours in school, I am tempt- 
ed to complain of their teachers and parents to that useful 



4© IRENMUS LETTERS. 

institution for the " Prevention of Cruelty to Children." It 
is very well to invade the circus and theatre and rescue acro- 
bats and ballet dancers : it is very well to stop Italian beggar 
boys from following monkeys and organ-grinders : but better 
and humaner would be the charity that should open the eyes 
of mothers and others to the sinful folly of overlading the 
young mind with the lore of books, when what they more 
need is beef and fresh air. 

And if the S. P. C. C. will arrest and punish the Sunday- 
school teacher whose indiscretion inspires this epistle, I will 
pay the expenses of the prosecution. 



SUMMER BOARD AND SUMMER BOARDERS. 

" Advice gratis" is never taken to be worth anything. As 
the fruit of long experience may be of some practical use to a 
numerous class of people, viz., boarders and those who take 
boarders in the country, I offer this letter under the trees to 
my fellow-sufferers and friends. 

ADVICE TO THOSE WHO TAKE BOARDERS. 

First get a gridiron. This is a kitchen utensil made of 
iron ; as the name indicates. It differs from a griddle in a 
very important respect : the griddle is a solid flat surface on 
which meat or any compost may be fried in fat. Everybody 
in the country knows a griddle. It has been in use from time 
immemorial, and the soft memories of griddle-cakes linger in 
the mind of every one who was raised in this or any other 
land of cakes. A frying-pan is used for the same purpose as 
a griddle, and for other purposes, the chief of them indicated 
by the name. It is for frying. 

But a gridiron is another and a totally different article. Its 
nature, design and duty are in a line of service distinct and 
different in all that concerns the comfort, health and life of 
the boarder who, for the time being, is your guest, and looks 
to you to be his minister in things pertaining to his daily 



SUMMER BOARD AND SUMMER BOARDERS- 41 

food. Gradually approaching my subject, again I ask, have 
you a gridiron ? Or, not having one, do you know what it is ? 
It consists of several narrow separated iron bars usually lying 
parallel, secured at the ends, so that they will support a slice 
of meat, or a cleft chicken, over a bed of glowing coals. 
The process of cooking meat on a gridiron is broiling, in con- 
tradistinction from frying, which is done in a griddle or pan. 
In the latter case, the flesh is cooked in its own fat, which 
becomes set or fixed in the meat, baked, jellied, and the food 
is tough, hard and indigestible. In the broiling process the 
outside is quickly charred, the juices are retained, and the 
meat is more tender, better flavored and far more digestible. 
The same difference exists between baking and roasting. Put 
a piece of beef or a turkey into a pan and shut it up in a hot 
oven till it is done, and you call it roasted, but it is' not : it is 
baked. Put it on a spit, in a Dutch oven standing before the 
fire, or hang it over the coals and let it cook and drip, basting 
it meanwhile with things appropriate, and the meat will be 
roasted. The difference between baked and roasted meats is 
similar to the difference between fried and broiled. And the 
difference in the taste, though great, is not so great as the 
difference in the digestibility of the two. The frying-pan is 
the source of a large part of the dyspepsia that abounds in 
the country. And so painfully sensible are many people on 
this subject, they will not eat that which is fried, preferring 
to fast rather than become the victims of a fit of indigestion 
which with them is sure to follow the eating of meats that 
are thus cooked. 

Therefore, I say unto you, whosoever purpose first to take 
summer boarders from the city, get unto yourselves a grid- 
iron. I do not deny that the frying-pan has its uses. And 
the saying " out of the frying-pan into the fire" is so ancient, 
that it is certain the utensil is of no modern date. But many 
evils in this world are of long standing, and antiquity is no 
palliation of their ill-deserts. It does indeed render them 
more respectable, and much harder of extirpation, but they 
do not grow better with age ; and their respectability does 
not forbid their criticism, 



42 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

There is a moral aspect also in which this gridiron versus 
frying-pan question is to be viewed. Good digestion is in 
order to the normal exercise of the moral faculties. Much of 
that depression of spirit which gets the name of religious 
melancholy, gloom, loss of hope, actual despair, comes of 
dyspepsia. A writer on physiology says : 

" Many persons do not exactly know where their stomach 
is, and a still larger number are apt to forget that it lies very 
close underneath the heart." 

Just so nearly related in morals, as in physics, are the 
stomach and the heart. This is another and constraining 
consideration in favor of roasting and broiling, and against 
baking and frying our meat. 

Passing from this, but without leaving the table, let me 
intimate in the gentlest terms that are adequate to the emer- 
gency, that city boarders in the country desire abundance of 
those things which are supposed to be abundant in the rural 
districts. Yet to my certain knowledge farmers and others 
who have attracted summer boarders to their houses, send 
eggs, poultry, and even milk to market, while their boarders 
are hungering and thirsting after some of these good things, 
and find them not. Fruit and vegetables which ought to be 
furnished in the greatest profusion, are often far more of a 
rarity in the country than in the city. For this there is no 
adequate excuse. It is little short of robbery, it is certainly 
an imposition, to offer board in the country, without making 
provision for the supply of those staples of the country with- 
out which health and contentment are impossible. This is 
more emphatically true when children are to be fed. And 
when they cry for food, it is a shame that they cannot have 
plenty of that which is convenient for them. 

Yet many a good matron in the country thinks to please 
her boarders by pastries and puddings, while she neglects 
the weightier matters, such as poultry and peas. 

And the bed ; O my friend, have pity on the weary bones 
of your guest, who has been beguiled to your rural resting 
place. That is not a bed for an honest man that you have 
made of straw, or shavings, or husks, A good bed may, 



SUMMER BOARD AND SUMMER BOARDERS. 43 

perhaps, have been made out of some such materials ; and I 
have slept on worse beds, and been happy and thankful. If 
duty or necessity required, one might sleep on the oaken 
floor, or on a rock out of doors, and enjoy it. But that does 
not make it right for you to put me upon a bed worse than 
my desired gridiron, and charge me a round price for the 
luxury ! I have been at the seaside, and in the mountains, 
and in country villages, paying fair prices for summer board, 
and the beds were so thin, hard, uneven, hillocky, musty, 
and the pillows so insignificant in size and so contemptible 
in material, that each night was a torment instead of a re- 
freshment, and " O how welcome was the morning light !" 

I will not write to you of cleanliness. No rhetoric will 
open the eyes to dirt. The faculty of seeing it is a gift ; and 
with all your gettings, if you have not a horror of this great 
evil you will never acquire it. Therefore, one must put up 
with your infirmity once and never suffer it again. Yet 
cleanliness is a grace that crowns the rest with a halo, and 
without it a palace would be unendurable by a " pure and 
virtuous soul." 

Pardon these hints. I will now speak to the boarders. 
They need speaking to. They are unreasonable, exacting, 
provoking, ungrateful, impertinent, and take so many airs 
upon themselves that I must take them down a little. 



There are many excellent people, who spend a few weeks 
or months in the country every summer, — reasonable, Chris- 
tian, pleasant people,— who have regard to the rights and 
feelings, and even the weaknesses and shortcomings of others. 
To such good people, of whom the world is hardly worthy, 
why should I write ? I could not make them any better if I 
were to try. And my fear is that the other sort of boarders 
will imagine that they too are perfect ; and so between them 
both my words will be like water spilled on the floor, that 
does no good where it is, and cannot be gathered up again. 

One of the most difficult of all attainments is the art of 
easily and gracefully adapting one's-self to any circumstances, 



44 IRENMUS LETTERS, 

so as to be at home, and agreeable, whether all things go to 
one's satisfaction or not. To be thoroughly pleased with 
the arrangements that others make for us, after having for a 
time abandoned our own, is next to impossible. Hence we 
put it as the highest proof of being pleased, that we are per- 
fectly at home. Next to being so, is the honest effort to 
make others feel that you are so. 

To find everything in a farm-house, or boarding-house, or 
a hotel, as you left it at home is out of the question. And 
it often happens that the more show, fuss and cost, the less 
real comfort is afforded. 

But if you go to the country with a conviction that be- 
cause you are city bred, you will be " looked up to," and 
treated with a deference that your rank is entitled to, you 
will be disappointed. Many city people, especially those 
who have suddenly acquired wealth, assume the position of 
superiors, and when they act out their assumptions, they 
make themselves both ridiculous and unhappy. It is the 
token of true nobility to make even the lowliest at ease in 
your presence. And the advent of such a well-bred person 
into the house of a rural family is soon found to be a pleas- 
ure to the old and the young. While on the other hand, the 
airs and tones, and fidgets and fretfulness, and sneers and 
complaints of a parvenu are enough to make a boarding- 
house wretched to all its inmates. Some people imagine 
that they will be thought genteel just in proportion to the 
number of times they ring the bell and call for a servant to 
wait upon them. They are careful also not to manifest in- 
terest in the family whose services they pay for, and by keep- 
ing a thick wall between them and others they hope to ex- 
hibit that exclusiveness which they have conceived to be the 
specific mark of high aristocracy. Such people are never 
comfortable. And happy is that house and that neighbor- 
hood where none of them go to board in the summer. 

On the very common sense principle that every one is 
bound to make himself useful wheresoever he lives and 
moves, what a world of good might be done if each city 
boarder were a missionary in the country ! Not of religion 



SUMMER BOARD AND SUMMER BOARDERS. 45 

only. That duty needs no preaching from me. Bear in 
mind that you are not your own, and you do not live for 
yourselves even when seeking health and pleasure away 
from home. But there are other duties, not classed under 
the head of religious, though in one sense all duties are 
religious — the duty of making the best of everything; of 
enduring what is past curing ; of bearing other people's bur- 
dens ; of wearing a kindly face and speaking friendly words ; 
of being the servant of those who need service, albeit they 
are ungrateful. 

There is a way to make the house and grounds cheerful by 
such a manner as will spread itself like the breeze and sun- 
shine, gladdening all hearts, and giving pain to none. There 
is also a way to make everybody uncomfortable because you 
seem to be so : it is a habit of finding fault with everything, 
or certainly with many things : of often saying, " How much 
better everything is at home than here :" which may be very 
true, and yet it may be very unkind to say it ; and it is gen- 
erally agreed that those people who live the most shabbily 
at home, find the most fault and put on the greatest airs 
when they are away. 

And there are many — you, dear friends, are among them — 
who take delight in making the village, or country-side, or 
the sea-side brighter and better by your presence, identifying 
yourself, even for a little while, with the church, and every 
good work that needs a helping hand, and leaving behind 
you memorials of your usefulness, that will often call up 
your name among the country people who, for a time, had 
you as a summer boarder. 



46 IREN&US LETTERS. 



A COUNTRY PASTOR'S SERMON. 

It would have done you good to be with me yesterday. 

Up here among the hills, and therefore the valleys, we have 
"the stated means of grace/' and very good means they are, 
better by many degrees than are sometimes enjoyed or 
endured in the more elevated parts of the Church. The min- 
ister is much more of a man than he looks to be. And he 
looks to be more and more of a man the oftener you set your 
eyes on him, especially if you can see him when you can hear 
him also. Personal appearance ought not to be of much 
account in the pulpit, but it is. He is of medium height and 
age. His voice is strong, so is his style. Earnest, and yet 
gentle, he commands and wins. He has been here ten years, 
and has a firm hold on the affections and respect of the 
people. 

He deserves it. I have no wish to disturb him by publish- 
ing his name abroad, but I will give you a specimen of his 
preaching. It will be only a skeleton, wanting the muscle, 
blood and life of his discourse. The text shows that he is a 
thinking man who finds suggestions of truth where others see 
only the one beautiful and simple story. It was a line taken 
from the narrative of the woman at the Well of Samaria : 

"Thou hast nothing to draw with and the well 

IS DEEP." 

The well is the infinite truth of God in his written Word. 
The deep things of God are not so deep as to be entirely 
beyond the reach of those who have something to draw with, 
but for those who thus come without, there is no help : they 
cannot get a drop of water from the well of salvation, the 
Word of eternal life. This is the simple explanation of the 
well-known fact that many who are called the people of God 
go all their lifetime without obtaining, clear, comforting and 
satisfactory views of divine truth : they are perplexed with 
doubts and fears, and even suffer so severely from want of 
water, that they dry up and become skeptics, unbelievers, and 
perish in their ignorance and sin. They have nothing to 



A COUNTRY PASTOR'S SERMON. 47 

draw with and the well is deep. They can get nothing out of 
it to slake the thrist of their immortal souls. 

The man of science, or the wise philosopher, or the learned 
rationalist, comes to the well, each with his own instruments 
for the measurement of its depth and to get the water up to 
the surface. Each of them makes a trial. The man of science 
discovers that there is nothing in it, for he can prove that 
many mistakes have been made by those who have relied upon 
it for a supply of water. The philosopher says it is far better 
to seek water at a running stream or a bubbling fountain, 
than at the bottom of a well. And the rationalist is sure 
there is no water in it, for he has often tried to get a drink 
and always found it exceedingly dry. 

The preacher described, in very neat and appropriate terms, 
the motions of these wise men in their explorations of the 
well, going all about it, peering over the edge of it, and look- 
ing down into the abyss, and turning away in disgust because 
there was no water they could reach. They had nothing to 
draw with and the well was deep. This is just the difference 
between those who have and those who have not the means 
by which the water of life is to be drawn from the well of 
God's eternal Word. The woman of Samaria (he said) knew 
not that she was speaking to the Saviour himself : the foun- 
tain of life: the living well, when she told him He had noth- 
ing to draw with. But he opened unto her the gospel and 
revealed Himself to her, and then to her friends, as the water 
of which if a man drinks he will never thirst again. And so 
it is in all the ages of the world. To get the water of life 
out of the truth of God, it is needful only to come through 
Jesus Christ, with humble faith in Him who is the way and 
the truth, and the water which no man of science or wisdom 
can draw with all his inventions, will spring up in him in- 
stantly unto everlasting life. The untutored peasant, in his 
cottage with the Bible on his knee, reads, loves and receives. 
It is refreshment to his soul. Not to the traveller in a dry 
and thirsty land is a gushing spring more gladdening than is 
the promise, and the poetry, and the story of God's mighty 
Word, to the humble and believing child of poverty, or sor- 



4& IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

row, who receives it as a child, and trusts his soul with joyful 
faith in the Divine word. 

"I remember," said he, "the 'old oaken bucket that hung 
in the well/ and the gladness with which I pressed my dry 
lips to its rim and drank the cool water which, in a hot sum- 
mer day, I had drawn from the well. I knew the water was 
there: the bucket was there: and before I ever drew it I 
knew it was good. And I come with the same childlike con- 
fidence to the fountain of God's Word : I know it is pure and 
true and good : and that I may drink of it freely and abun- 
dantly and shall live forever. 1 do not take a microscope and 
examine each drop to see if there be any impurity in it : nor 
do I search the town records to ascertain if it be the same well 
that our fathers drank of : I come to it with faith, and love, and 
joy, and its waters are sweet to my taste, and my thirst is 
slaked, my heart is full, and I bless God for the provision of 
his holy Word." 

It is quite impossible for me to give a fair and adequate 
impression of this able and ingenious discourse. Its obvious 
object, and he worked it out well, was to show that the spirit 
of captious criticism, or of doubt and fear, was fatal to the 
understanding and enjoyment of the truth : that Christ gives 
the water to them who believe and do His will, and he quoted 
the familiar texts of Scripture that teach this elementary 
truth of the gospel, that they who are willing to obey shall 
know of the doctrine. 

I looked over the congregation, and observed them care- 
fully as I came with them out of the house at the close of the 
service, and saw that they were rural and simple folk : not 
rude, but unfamiliar with what is called the world: and under 
the wise teachings of this noble preacher and pastor they 
were being trained intelligently for the true enjoyment of 
religion and for glory beyond the skies. Happy people! 
They have something to draw with when they come to the 
well. Their pure, unclouded faith, that no shade of doubt 
ever disturbed for an hour, brings to their lips and their 
hearts the cooling draughts, and they will never thirst with- 
out having the living waters springing up in them unto ever- 
lasting life. 



MRS, DOREMUS. 49 



MRS. DOREMUS. 

Soon after my coming to New York, to the work that still 
is my life-work, Mrs. Doremus called to enlist me in aid of 
some scheme of benevolence, to which she had put her hand. 

She had then been more than ten years the leading spirit 
in missionary enterprise: having been one of those noble 
women in 1828 who sent out aid to the Greeks by the hand 
of Jonas King, and in 1834, with Mrs. Divie Bethune, had set 
on foot a plan to educate women in the East, a scheme that 
ripened into that mighty ministry of mercy — the Woman's 
Union Missionary Society — a tree with many branches, whose 
leaves are for the healing of the nations. * 

When she came to me thirty-seven years ago it was in the 
interest of the City and Tract Mission, and afterwards the 
City Bible Society; and by and by the House and School of 
Industry, and the Nursery and Child's Hospital, and then 
that grand establishment, the Woman's Hospital. Dr. Sims, 
who is the father of that house of mercy, has told me that he 
made no headway with his project till he went to Mrs. Dore- 
mus, who touched it, and it lived. What men could not 
do, she did. Even the Legislature of the State obeyed 
her will, and gave the charter. All the charities of the city, 
of every sect and of none, private or public, were objects of 
her solicitude and prayers. I never knew which one was her 
peculiar care. She had no hobby, and made no claim that 
this or that object was the most important. She was the 
good genius of every good work, and so the blessing of all 
the good came on her. It was a privilege and a joy to do 
what she wanted done. Her wishes in the sphere of Christian 
work were laws which it was a pleasure to obey. For full 
well did I know her wisdom was equal to her zeal, and it was 
safe to assist in any plan which had enlisted her intelligent 
support. 

Nearly forty years I have seen her at work : have recorded 
much of it : have gazed on it with wonder, and sometimes 
with awe ! Not one plan of hers has been the subject of just 



SO IREN&US LETTERS. 

criticism. Never has the manner of her work been open to 
exception. She never betrayed a weakness, never assumed a 
prominence that was not becoming a sensible, Christian wife, 
mother, lady and woman. 

I have the memoirs of nearly three thousand women, dis- 
tinguished in many ages, for deeds that have made their 
names illustrious in the annals of time. Among them there 
is not one, no, not one, whose record is more bright and 
beautiful in the light of heaven than hers. I have studied 
these records carefully and dispassionately, and if now the 
women were standing before me in one shining company, I 
would say without fear, " Many daughters have done virtu- 
ously, but thou, my friend, excellest them all." 

Some of them wore crowns and had power that was not 
hers. Others were endowed with gifts to write, and have 
filled the world with their fame. Some have gone on foreign 
missions, and others among the sick and wounded, and have 
visited prisons and founded orphanages, and made thousands 
of homes and hearts glad with the music of their lives. I 
have not forgotten their names or their deeds. I remember 
the women of Old Testament times, and the Marys of the 
gospel, and her who bathed her Saviour's feet with her tears : 
I believe in the sainted women of the Church of Rome, whose 
works will be in everlasting remembrance, and the martyrs 
whose blood was the least of their gifts to the cause of their 
Redeemer: and the noble women of modern times whose 
pious labors for the poor and the insane have added lustre to 
the beauty of their sex, and entitled them to the gratitude of 
mankind. I know their names, and love to read them on the 
roll to be called when the King shall say, " Come ye blessed 
of my Father." But of them all there is not one who wrought 
more for Christ than she whose name is like ointment poured 
forth among us, and whose virtues shall be cherished as her 
richest legacy to the Church of God. 

The fine arts have preserved the form and features of the 
great and good, who thus live on canvas and in marble. 
Churches and galleries and parks are made luminous with 
these memorials. It is a good thing to set up a stone to the 



MRS. DOREMUS. 51 

praise of virtue, that it may, though dead, continue to speak. 
It is no waste of ointment to pour it on the Master's feet, 
though it might have been sold for the poor : for it is to be 
always a memorial of holy love. So it would be well if the 
women, and the men likewise, would cause to be made a 
statue in the form and likeness of our friend Mrs. Doremus, 
of the purest, whitest marble, bending beneath the weight 
of years and many loads of care, faint yet pursuing, the image 
of the heavenly shining on her seraphic brow. Such a 
statue is due to her who fulfilled every trust and mission God 
ever gave to woman, and, by what she was, taught us what 
woman ought to be. 

Such a statue, in the vestibule of the Woman's Hospital, 
would be a monument to the sex she adorned : for she was a 
type and example of what woman is when she makes real in 
her life-work the conception of Him who created her in his 
own image. The money it would cost would be worthily ex- 
pended, for in all time to come it would testify to the power 
and the beauty of one who was spent for Christ and his. 

I have looked with silent admiration on the statues of 
great men and fair women that make beauteous the palaces 
of art in the old world : where ancient civilizations and ex- 
tinct mythologies have been preserved in their highest con- 
ceptions of what is had in reverence and love : I have read 
in story and song of the ideal of genius, 

11 A creature not too bright and good 
For human nature's daily food : 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill, 
A perfect woman nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort and command f 

but I never found in marble, or canvas, or history, or poetry, 
one that embodied the idea of usefulness so perfectly as it was 
presented in the life-work of our sainted friend. 

It is well to perpetuate the memory of such a woman. 
But whether we build a monument or carve her form in 
stone, her record is on high, and in the hearts of thousands 
and the history of the Church her memory will never die. 



52 IRENjEUS letters. 



THE BEAR IN BOSTON. 

On Christmas Day the children of the Sabbath-school 
being gathered to sing their hymns, receive their gifts, and 
hear a few speeches, I was called on to say something, and 
this was what came of it. 

Since we were last in this place to celebrate our Christmas 
festival, a bear died in Boston. If it seems strange to you 
that I mention this fact to-day, and you see no bearing that 
it has on the subject before us, bear with me a little and you 
shall see and hear. 

You have all come here from homes that ought to be 
happy, where your parents have tried to please you by mak- 
ing Christmas merry, and loading you with good things. 
They care for you, feed and clothe you, pray for you, and 
deserve your respect, obedience, and love. But there are 
many families, yours may be of the number, where the chil- 
dren are disobedient, disrespectful to their parents, and un- 
lovely, and it is of this sin of the young that I am to speak 
to you, taking for my text 

THE BEAR THAT DIED IN BOSTON. 

It was a private bear. His owner was a gentleman who 
took a fancy to such a pet, and when his favorite died, he 
determined to bury the bear with respect. Boston is in ad- 
vance of us in many things. We never have yet had a funeral 
for a bear in this city, but the proprietor of this Boston bear 
invited the wise men of the town to assemble and assist at 
the burial of his dead friend. Among the poets, philoso- 
phers, and philanthropists who abound in Boston was Dr. 
Holmes, a celebrated physician and wit, who was invited, 
and he replied to the note of invitation that " he was sorry 
he could not attend : for ever since he read in his youth of 
the bears of Bethel, who taught the children to respect old 
age, he had had great respect for bears as moral instructors ; 
and he thought if one were employed to go about Boston 



THE BEAR IN BOSTON. 53 

and its suburbs for the same purpose, the effect would be 
salutary upon the youthful population." 

It is my beiief if one bear would be good in Boston to 
teach the children respect for their parents and older people 
generally, a dozen bears might be usefully employed in New 
York and its vicinity in giving lessons to our irreverent 
youth. You remember the bears of Bethel to which Dr. 
Holmes referred, the bears whose moral forces produced such 
lasting impressions upon his early mind. The naughty chil- 
dren in the days of Elisha saw the good prophet going along 
the way, and they mocked him, made fun of him and of his 
bald head, when two bears came out of the woods and tore 
more than forty of them. But our boys are not afraid of 
bears. I have heard of one boy who made mock of an old 
gentleman in the streets, and then, jumping behind a bale of 
goods, put out his head and called aloud, " Now bring on 
your bears." What a wicked boy ! 

But it is not alone in such insults to the old that young 
America shows his disrespect. There are thousands of boys 
and girls in this city who call their father " the old man," and 
their mother " the old woman :" boys and girls of twelve or 
fifteen years, who think they are wiser than the parents, and 
insist upon going when and where they please; who will 
have the kind of dress, and just such a hat or bonnet, and 
just such company, and such amusements as they please ; 
and they will worry or badger their parents till they get what 
they want. And this disobedience is not confined to the 
city; it is almost as common in the country, and all the 
country over : it is the vice of the age, and the parent of 
many vices. A gentleman riding in the country heard a man 
calling to his son to come into the house, and as the boy paid 
no attention to the call, the traveller stopped and asked the 
lad if he heard his father calling. "Oh ! y-a-a-s," replied the 
youth; "but I don't mind what he says. Mother don't 
neither ; and 'twixt us both, we've about got the dog so he 
don't." 

All over the land it is the same thing, Children and young 
people are less mindful of their manners towards the old 



54 IREN&US LETTERS. 

than they once were. I asked a boy the other day in one of 
the street cars to rise and give his seat to a lady, and he an- 
swered, " Five cents is jist as good for me as her, let her 
stand." Manners are not as they once were, at home or on 
the street. And from disobedience to parents comes disre- 
gard of law and order ; then comes crime and punishment. 
The fifth commandment is a promise of long life to them 
that honor their parents : for the child who refuses to obey 
his father or mother, begins vice early, is likely to go on from 
bad to worse, and it is not strange if he comes to some bad 
end. Many a man under the gallows has traced his career 
of crime back to the time when he refused to submit to his 
father's will. 

When I was travelling in the East, I saw near many large 
towns a pit or valley where the carcases of dead beasts were 
cast, and there came the birds of prey and feasted upon 
the carrion. In ancient times, if not now, the bodies of men 
put to death for crime were thrown out into the same place 
to be devoured. And then I understood the terrible mean- 
ing of that strange passage in the Book of Proverbs : 

"The eye that mocketh at his father and despiseth to 
obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, 
and the young eagles shall eat it." 

These birds of prey may not, will not, indeed, come down 
to tear out the eyes of children in the streets, but the child 
who begins when young to despise the counsels and com- 
mands of his or her parents, is in the bad broad way that 
leads to destruction. 

Now in the morning of life, while home is happy and par- 
ents are dear to you, and Christmas presents are in heaps 
around you, love, honor, and obey those who are so good to 
you. So shall it be well with you all the days of your life, 
and each year shall be happier than the one before. 



IT'S HIS WA Y. 55 

IT'S HIS WAY. 

11 It must be right ; I've done it from my youth." 

— Crabbe. 

My friend was defending the conduct of a man whom I 
had censured with some severity. 

" O it's his way. You mustn't be hard on him. He is 
not to be judged by the same rules that other men are. 
You know there was always a queer streak in him, and in- 
deed it runs through the family: they are all queer: you 
must overlook some things in them that would not be put 
up with in other people." 

This talk may savor of the charity that covers a multitude 
of sins, but its does not make the sins any the less, nor the 
sinner more excusable in the sight of God and all right- 
thinking people. 

There is a way that seems right to a man, and perhaps to 
some of his friends as well, but it is wrong, nevertheless, 
and there is a terrible hell at the end of it. When you 
come to morals, there is no such thing as a code of right and 
wrong for one man and not for another. There are degrees 
of light, and capacity, and opportunity, and we must not 
measure all men by the same standard to determine the 
amount of blame or praise to which they are entitled. It 
is required of a man according to what he hath. Unto 
whom much is given of him much is required. And vice 
versa. But to every man unto whom the light of divine 
truth has come, the standard of right and wrong is the same ; 
and nobody, however great or small, shall escape his re- 
sponsibility for wrong by the plea, " It's my way, and you 
mustn't mind it." 

Yet you have often heard this plea set up in defence of 
public men, and private Christians, whose ways are so out of 
the common, so repugnant to good morals, that they would 
be condemned without mercy if their offence had just once 
come to the knowledge of the world, but they are pardoned 
and rather petted and liked for their boldness and eccen- 



5 6 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

tricity, if they put a fair face on it and keep on until people 
say " It's their way." 

In reply to my friend's remark, I said: "Suppose, now, 
that the Rev. Dr. A., or Judge B., or Gen. C. had done the 
very same things that are not only charged upon your man, 
but are admitted on all hands to have been done by him, 
and are justified by him and gloried in, what would you 
say ? Would you palliate their conduct ? Would you still 
respect them as honorable, honest, and good men? Or 
would you turn upon them as wrong-doers, the more worthy 
of contempt and condemnation because of their position, 
knowledge, and power?" 

He owned up to the force of the argument, and fell back 
on his first principle. " Yes, yes : that's all true, but all men 
are not alike, and that's his way: he doesn't mean to do 
wrong." 

One of my neighbors was telling me about his minister : 
said he, " I like his preaching, but his manner of doing it is 
awful. He has no ease, no grace, no dignity : he makes wry 
faces, and awkward gestures, and acts all the time as if some- 
thing was hurting him. But then * ifs his way.* " Certainly 
it is, and a very bad way, too. It hinders and harms his 
usefulness : takes away from the force of the truth : pains 
the hearer when he ought to be attracted ; and so the Word, 
even the Word of God, is made of none effect. He has 
been taught better, and is yet so young that he might cure 
himself of these disagreeable habits that have become so 
characteristic as to be called his. But he himself thinks 
they are his ways, and therefore innocent and rather great. 

Dr. Johnson was a bear among men and women, his 
manners intolerable and his speech outrageous. It was 
allowed and even enjoyed, on the ground that it was " his 
way." But that made it no more decent. And no amount 
of genius or learning will justify a man among men in 
failing to be a gentleman. 

All peculiarities are not to be found fault with. Far 
from it. Every man has a way of his own, as his face 
and walk and voice are unlike every other face and walk 



IT'S HIS WAY. 57 

and voice. To be distinguished for virtues is itself a virtue. 
Dr. Cox was told that Calvin Colton said of him, 

" If it were not for his Coxisms, Dr. Cox would be a 
great man." 

"Yes," said Dr. Cox, "he might have been Calvin Colton." 

Learning, wit, goodness, every good, may adorn and illus- 
trate a man's life, and the more of such ways a man has 
the better for the world he lives in, his age, his country, the 
Church, and the kingdom of God. But it sadly happens for 
the most part that we speak of "his way" or "my way" as 
an excuse for something that might be better. 

Mr. D. comes home from his day's work weary and hungry, 
and therefore (he thinks it is therefore) cross. He makes 
himself specially unpleasant to the little family whom he 
ought to brighten and bless by words of cheer and love. 
But " his ways" are not ways of pleasantness. And so it 
comes to pass that his paths are not the paths of peace. 
For as iron sharpeneth iron, so one cross man in a house 
crosses all the rest, and he gets as good as he gives. Like 
begets like. The savor of his presence while the mood is 
on him spreads a pall on the spirits of the household ; cold- 
ness, petulance, and general discomfort reign. Over the 
evening meal he thaws and melts and the better nature 
flows : the children catch the returning tide and begin to 
play in it : the man is himself again and the house is glad. 
It is " his way" to be out of sorts when he comes home. 
And it is a bad way, a mean way, a wicked way, and he ought 
to repent of it and be reformed. 

I never heard Mr. E. (a man whose company I am often 
in) speak well of anybody but himself. His rule is : " If you 
can't say something ill of a man, say nothing." That's his 
way. He goes on the principle that if a cause is good, or 
a man is good, or a woman is all right, there's no need of 
talking about it, him or her; but if there is a screw loose, or 
room for improvement, or danger of going wrong, it is best 
to say so, and so make it better. And on this ground he 
finds fault with everything. He is a pessimist. The worst 
side of everybody is before his eye. The spots on the sun 



58 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

fix his attention. No sermon ever satisfied his mind or 
escaped his criticism. The newspaper he enjoys in exact 
proportion to the number of mistakes he finds in it. Society- 
is out of joint, in his judgment. Nobody knows how to do 
anything as it ought to be done. If they would only let him 
run things for a while, he would show them how to do it. 
He is disgusted generally, and takes pains to say so. This 
is his way. 

And it is just about the most disagreeable way a man can 
have. He forgets that other people are annoyed by his in- 
cessant grumbling ; that most people love to take cheerful 
views of things, to look on the bright side, to hope for the 
best, to find good even in the midst of evil, and to try to im- 
prove what can be mended, and not to fret about what can't 
be helped. Mr. E. often comes into my office and wants me 
to " come down on" this man and that society and. cause ; and 
he thinks I am timid and time-serving because I will not let 
him swing his whip over the backs of all the saints and re- 
form them, as he thinks, into necessary righteousness. He is 
the most unsanctified friend I have, and yet he thinks all the 
rest wrong and himself about right. I have no fear of offend- 
ing him by saying this, for his self-righteousness renders him 
all unconscious of his sinful infirmity, and the first time I see 
him he will thank me " for giving it to those everlasting 
faultfinders." 

" Mark the perfect man." Would that we might have a 
chance. There was one. No guile was ever found in his 
mouth. He was meek and lowly in heart, and the lion also 
of his tribe. He loved those who hated him. He gave his 
life for others. His way was like the going forth of the sun. 
And all the nations are blessed in him. His friends never 
had to make an apology for him. His judge could find no 
fault in him. His ways were not offensive to any good 
people. And he was lifted up to draw all men unto him. 

So, my friend, bear in mind when you say, in defence of a 
habit, " It's my way," or " It's his way," the strong presump- 
tion is — it's a bad way. 



A PASTOR AND FRIEND. 59 



A PASTOR AND FRIEND. 

When the Rev. Dr. Dickinson, first President of Prince- 
ton College, was on his death-bed, the rector of the Episco- 
pal church in the village (they were in Elizabethtown) was also 
dying. The President was first released, and when the rec- 
tor was told that his friend and neighbor had gone, he ex- 
claimed, " O that I had hold of his skirts." 

This was the thought of Elisha when the other prophet 
went up. 

It was my first desire when I heard that my old friend Dr. 
Brinsmade, of Newark, had been suddenly translated. Eighty 
years old : full of years, full of grace, with his arms full of 
sheaves, rejoicing in the Lord : he was not, for God took 
him. 

What a tide of emotion rushed in as I remembered the 
years of our daily companionship, while he was pastor and I 
led the Sabbath-school. The friendship was warm, tender 
and holy ; as free from dross as human friendship can be ; 
cemented by the common love we had for Christ, His Church, 
and especially the lambs of His flock. For them we labored 
hand in hand, and great was our joy and reward. 

You will be interested in some of the recollections I have 
of this dear good man. Perhaps you will be profited as well 
as interested. At any rate, the hour I spend in writing of 
him will be " privileged beyond the common walks of life, 
quite in the verge of heaven." For as I sit in my silent study, 
in the still night, and the fire burns low, and the city itself is 
asleep around me, I call up the memories of my departed 
friend, and even now, this minute, it seems as though he 
might step in as he was wont to every day what time he was 
in the flesh, and had not yet ascended to his Father and my 
Father. 

And that reminds me of one interview in the study : to tell 
of it will be the shortest way to discover the calm, equable, 
trustful nature of the man. 

Facts had come to my knowledge, very painful, and per- 



60 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

sonally to him distressing, which he ought to know, and 
which it became my duty to impart to him. I evaded and 
avoided the unpleasant task, until a sense of duty overcame : 
and when he came to my study in the evening, I went at it 
with protracted circumlocution, and after a tedious introduc- 
tion managed at last to lay the skeleton at his feet. Then I 
paused, expecting to hear some pious ejaculation like a prayer 
for help : but, to my relief and surprise, he simply said : 

"Well, I have long since made up my mind not to expend 
emotion on what cannot be helped.'' 

That sentence has been like a proverb with me ever since. 
It is only a paraphrase of the adage, " What can't be cured, 
must be endured." But it has a little more philosophy in it, 
and means " don't fret : there are two things never to be wor- 
ried about : things that can be helped, and things that can't 
be helped. If you can cure them, do so and don't fret : if 
you can't cure them, fretting only makes matters worse." 
This is philosophy, Grace comes in and says : " Your 
heavenly Father careth for these things : his will is wise and 
kind : let not your heart be troubled." 

We never made allusion to the matter again. It was as 
though the skeleton were buried in the darkness of that 
night, and its burial-place were not known. 

Eighty years! Fourscore years of usefulnesss, devotion, 
holy living and active Christian benevolence. For, like his 
Master, he went about doing good. His power in the minis- 
try was in pastoral work. It is not probable that any church 
ever had a pastor more nearly perfect than he. He was a 
good, not a great preacher, except as goodness is often the 
greatest greatness. Warm, earnest, drenched with Scripture, 
and rich Christian experience, his sermons were poured forth 
from a heart full of tenderness and love, so that every hearer 
knew the preacher yearned to do him good. 

Himself a disciple in the school of suffering, taught by the 
Man of Sorrows, he was a son of consolation to them who 
mourned. In every household of his charge he ministered in 
affliction, and his people, especially the children of his peo- 
ple, died in his arms. Just here I could speak of scenes that 



A PASTOR AND FRIEND. 6 1 

he and I will talk over together, when we and ours are sitting 
on the banks of the river that flows from the throne of the 
Lamb ! Hallowed memories ! Tears thirty years ago now 
flowing again, while his are all wiped away by the hand of 
Infinite Love ! 

It is not weakness to weep when these memories come, 
and little fingers of the long-ago-lost fondly play with our 
heart-strings in the night watches. Jesus wept. And he 
wept by the grave of one he loved. I would be like my 
Lord, and if I may not resemble him in aught else, let them 
say of me, as they said of Jesus, " Behold, how he loved 
him." 

Children would stop in their play to take his hand as he 
passed along the street. And there is nothing in the descrip- 
tion of the village pastor of Goldsmith more beautiful than was 
daily revealed in the walk and conversation of this good shep- 
herd. He was able to give money to those who had need of 
it, for his own habits were exceedingly simple, almost severe, 
and his income ample. It was freely spent upon the poor in 
his own flock, and in the ends of the world. The father of 
many orphans, he was as the Lord is to them whom father 
and mother had left behind when going home to heaven. 

So have I seen a peaceful meadow stream winding its way 
among green fields, and trees planted by the water-course ; 
verdure and flower and fruit revealing its life-giving power. 
It made no noise. It was often hid from sight by the wealth 
of overhanging branches : but it was a river of water of life 
to the valley it blessed. Like unto such a stream is the life 
of my departed friend. This day the garden of the Lord is 
glad for him : his whole course of 80 years may be traced by 
the fruit and flower and joy which rose into being along his 
path. He did not strive nor cry, his voice was not heard in 
the streets. Others were more gifted with golden speech, 
and had wider fame among men. But no minister of our 
day has been an angel of mercy to more hearts : none is 
wept by more whom he comforted : none has been welcomed 
by a goodlier company of saints whom he saved, and of 
them whose angels do always behold the face of my Father, 



62 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

How better to be good than to be great ! How much 
greater than greatness goodness is ! 



A DREAM OF THE YEAR. 

" I saw a vision in my sleep, 
That gave my spirit strength to sweep 
Adown the gulf of Time I" 

— T. Campbell. 

We have more dreams awake than when we sleep. A 
large part of every one's life is passed amid " the stuff that 
dreams are made of." At times we hardly know whether we 
have been asleep or not, a vision of past and future appears — 
and then vanishes away. 

It was in one of those moods between waking and sleep- 
ing, before rising on the morning of the first day of the year, 
that this vision passed before me, with all the vividness of 
the sun, and left its impress so that I can tell you what I saw 
and heard. 

I was walking on the bank of a deep, broad, silent river, 
flowing onward toward the sea. The stream was cov- 
ered with vessels of various names and rig ; all going with 
the current ; making progress, some more, some less, but all 
getting on. Some of these ships were so near me that I 
could see the men on board, and with a little care I could dis- 
cover the work that each was set to do, from the master to 
the cabin boy. There was enough for all, and each vessel 
kept on its own course, when every man did his own work, 
faithfully and well. There was some bad steering and slov- 
enly handling the sails, and here and there a captain was tipsy 
and things were out of sorts, and one ship would run into 
another or get aground ; and I saw that the neglect of any 
one to do his duty, made mischief that brought trouble to all 
on board. 

Before me in the path stood a man whose white hair and 



A DREAM OF THE YEAR. 63 

wrinkles told me of his great age, and even if he had not 
carried a scythe over his shoulder, I would easily have 
known him as Father Time. He said to me in firm and man- 
ly tones : 

" Whither goest thou ?" 

"With the current," I replied; "all things seem tending 
to the sea : some go by water, some by land, and I suppose 
we are all going the same way." 

"Turn," he said, "and go back with me, on the path thou 
hast travelled." 

We reversed our steps, and he spoke to me of the path of 
human life: it is often called a journey, a pilgrimage : but it 
should rather be spoken of as a place, a house, a field, a bat- 
tle, a service ; he said it was wrong to think of life as a sort 
of space or distance between two goals : a race to be run and 
then over : a voyage to be made and then the port to be en- 
joyed : and as we walked side by side he discoursed to me of 
the duties of life, of the works that each man has to do, and 
neglecting which, he makes a failure. We came, in our walk, 
upon wrecks of vessels stranded and rotten on the shore : 
by the side of the pathway, and now and then in the very 
road itself, were the remnants of broken engines, and the 
scattered members of beautiful machinery and the bones of 
human beings lying in the grass by the wayside. Puzzled 
with the sight of these things, not one of which I had noticed 
when pursuing my journey alone and with the current of the 
stream, I looked up with wonder to my patriarchal guide 
and asked : 

"What are these wrecks that strew the road ?" 

"Lost opportunities," were the only words that fell 
from his lips, but they fell as from out of the sky, so far off 
and so solemn did they sound in my ear. I was silent, awe- 
struck, and anxious, for a faint suspicion came to my mind 
that this was in part my work, and these ruins were memorials 
of my neglect, if nothing worse. And I repeated his words 
in a tone of respectful inquiry : 

" Lost opportunities ? Whose and what, tell me, my coun- 
sellor and friend." 



64 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

He paused in his walk, and removing from his shoulder the 
scythe, he rested on it, and began : 

"We have gone back far enough to learn the lesson of 
the day. The distance we have walked is in time one year. 
The wrecks and ruins we have passed, and those now in 
sight, are the resolutions made, the purposes formed, the 
works begun, the chances enjoyed, the means neglected, the 
mischief done, deeds left unfinished, friendships lost, Sabbaths 
spoiled, months run to waste, weeks fruitless, days idled 
away, hours spent in vain : each one of these lost opportuni- 
ties is a wreck and skeleton on the pathway of thy existence. 
Hadst thou done thy whole duty in this one year over which 
we have walked, this shattered frame, now helplessly ruined, 
would have been in beautiful operation, working out a noble 
mission for the good of man. Hadst thou stretched out a 
hand to save this struggling fellow-man, or let him lean on 
thy shoulder, when he was weak and thou strong for the 
struggle of life, he would now be by thy side, or if left behind 
would be praying for thee, as he pressed on toward the 
mark. You have done well for yourself, but no man liveth 
to himself, if he live rightly. You may make a long journey 
and at last rest from your labors, but you will never forget 
these memorials of lost opportunities that now cry to thee 
from the ground/' 

I was cut to the heart by these words of reproof, and in 
my remorse, perhaps inspired by that terrible allusion to the 
death of Abel, I exclaimed, "Am I my brother's keeper?" 

" Certainly thou art," he said, with a calmness that was 
more severe in contrast with the earnestness of my cry. 
" The whole world is kin, and thy brother is he unto whom 
thou canst do a good turn, as both pursue the journey of 
life. All are parts of one great whole : members of a large 
family : the strong must bear the burdens of the weak : the 
tempted are to be shielded : they that are out of the way are 
to be reclaimed : the sinning, yes, the very wicked, are to be 
sought and saved." 

" And shall I have one more year in which to repent me of 
the past and to do works meet for repentance ?" 



A DREAM OF THE YEAR. 65 

And old Father Time shouldered his scythe, turned him- 
self about, took me by the hand and said, softly, " That is 
not for thee or me to know. Thy times are in the hands of 
Him who gave thee life and opportunities. The Present is 
thine, and of that only art thou sure. Improve the present. 
With thy might do what thy hand findeth to do. To-mor- 
row never is. Yesterday is gone forever. Now is the accept- 
ed time : behold now is the day of salvation." 

He was gone, scythe and all : his snow-white beard still 
shone in my mind, but the vision was past, the sunlight was 
piercing the crevices of the window-blinds, and the shout 
of " Happy New Year " announced the advent of another 
morn. 

But it was not all a dream. The river flows toward the 
sea. The vessels, with their freight and the sailors, are borne 
onward. This pathway is thronged with travellers, brothers 
and sisters all. The year is to be full of opportunities, golden 
opportunities, to be useful. In the household lie the best and 
holiest duties to be done. A cheerful heart, and voice, and 
countenance, an open hand, a word of blessing when another's 
heart is weary or in pain, the thousand little tender services, 
too small to have a name, precious in the eyes of love, are 
noted in the book that records each cup of cold water a child 
of Christ receives. 



By this time the uproar was too great for dozing or medi- 
tation, and changing the robes of night for those of day, we 
were soon amid the gladdest scenes of the year. Let us 
hope that it will be ended as happily as it begins. 



66 I&ENMUS letters. 



DR. SPRING'S PREDICTION. 

At the funeral of a distinguished citizen of New York, a 
large number of the clergy were present by special invitation 
The late Rev. Dr. Spring, pastor of the Brick Church, was 
one who bore a part in the service. As we were leaving the 
house to enter the carriages in waiting, he took my arm, for 
his eyes were dim and his steps uncertain. I assisted him 
into the carriage, and Dr. De Witt took a seat by his side. 
Dr. Vermilye entered also, and I was shutting the door when 
one of them bade me come in. I said, " No, my place is 
with the younger brethren." This was speedily overruled, 
and I was seated with these Fathers of the Church. As the 
procession moved, Dr. Vermilye said to me : " You declined 
our company because of your youth; pray, how old art 
thou ?" 

I answered : " I am fifty-one : and you ?" 

Dr. V. responded, "Sixty-one." 

We turned to Dr. De Witt and begged to know his age, 
and he said, " I am seventy-one. 

It was now the patriarch's turn to speak ; we looked our 
desires to Dr. Spring, and he answered : " If I live until Feb- 
ruary next, I shall be eighty-one." 

Perhaps a more extraordinary coincidence in ages was 
never ascertained : four men finding themselves in the same 
carriage, with a decade between the years of their birth : now 
all of them beyond the half century, and ascending by tens 
to fourscore. The conversation that ensued was naturally 
suggested by the discovery we had made, and by the associ- 
ations of advancing years with the occasion that had thrown 
us together. Dr. Spring, with great preciseness of manner, 
as though the words were well considered, said to me : 

" You are now fifty-one years old, and you have the best 
thirty years of your life before you." 

" How can that be possible ?" I asked : " at fifty a man be- 
gins to think the best years of his life are past, and the journey 
onward is only down hill, * 



DR. SPRINGS PREDICTION. 67 

"Not at all," replied Dr. Spring: "you will have better 
health of body and mind : you will do more and better work 
for God and man in the next thirty years than you have done 
in the last fifty. I will not live to see it, but mark my words 
and see if it is not so." 

The words of the venerable man were to me like those of 
a prophet. His voice and manner, in the pulpit or out, were 
as of one sent to speak by authority, and some who sat in his 
presence sixty years will remember with something like awe 
his majestic tones and words. He must be more than a com- 
mon man who can stand in one pulpit, in the midst of a great, 
impulsive, changing commercial city like this, and maintain 
himself and hold his people more than sixty years ! If a man 
does not run out in that time, his hearers are very apt to 
think him exhausted, and to want young blood in the pulpit. 

Dr. Spring was before his people in thinking of this. And 
his treatment of the case was so characteristic of human 
nature that the fact, as I can mention it, will be a hint to pas- 
tors and to congregations. 

In the year 1849 Dr. Spring came to me in my study, and 
said : " I want you to help me in finding a colleague in my 
pulpit and pastoral work." 

" A colleague for you" I said with some surprise ; " the 
need of it is not apparent to me." 

" That may be," he replied, " but I am now sixty-four years 
old, and am approaching that time of life when I shall require 
assistance, and when that time arrives / shall be sure that I 
do not need it. I wish to secure a colleague in anticipation 
of that event." 

This purpose showed the strong, good sense of the man, 
great foresight, firmness of resolve, and a degree of self- 
knowledge very rare indeed. 

We gave ourselves to the task of finding the right man. 
His people knew nothing of his intention ; and they saw no 
signs of decay in those splendid powers of body and mind 
which had so long placed him in the front rank of living 
preachers. Perhaps they would have resisted his purpose 
had they known what was going on. 



68 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

His trustees voted him an extra sum with which to employ 
occasional aid at his own discretion, and various preachers 
were invited to supply his pulpit. No one of them seemed 
to be the man — some perhaps were too great, others too 
small : the one just right did not appear. 

And now for the result : five or six years went by, and 
when the congregation felt that a colleague was desirable, Dr. 
Spring was in the state of mind that he foresaw in 1849, and 
was very sure that he did not need one. 

This is not a condition peculiar to Dr. Spring. Men do 
not perceive their own mental failures. Often men think 
they can write as good a sermon or as brilliant an essay, and 
even a better one, than they ever could, when they are past 
fruit-bearing. Their friends will not tell them so. They 
would not believe their friends if they were told. They are 
more fluent of words, with tongue and pen, than they ever 
were, and so mistake the number of words for power of 
thoughts. 

Dr. Spring's mind did not fail him. He became stone- 
blind, and the cataract being removed he was restored to 
sight. The weight of eighty-eight years made "the strong 
men bow themselves," but his soul was triumphant as it trod 
the shining way upward to the glory that awaited him. 
When his limbs could no longer walk the floor, I was with 
him in his chamber, where he sat upright in his chair, clad in 
a white flannel robe, with a silk cap on his head : and in all 
the years of my intercourse I never had so cheery, familiar 
and entertaining discourse with him. It was discourse 
indeed, and he delivered the most of it. He told me of his 
boyish days, his adventures, his loves, his successes, not a 
word of his trials, and when I had taken leave of him, and 
was near the door, he called me back to tell me a story of 
Lyman Beecher and his wife being tipped out of a wagon. 
As we finally parted, he said : ' ' I wish you would come of tener; 
do come at least once a week : it will 7iot be long!' I never 
saw him again. 

What a volume could be made of the " pastors of New 
York" dead in the last forty years. I saw the sainted Milnor 



SABBATH AMONG THE HILLS. 69 

just after his soul ascended to his Father. He lay in white 
raiment, on his couch, as on a triumphal car. And the vol- 
ume would be bright with the names of Phillips, Potts and 
Krebs, Knox and De Witt, Maclay and Somers, McClintock 
and Durbin, Skinner and Alexander, Bethune, Parker, Asa 
D. Smith, McElroy, McLeod, McCartee, Janes, Hagenay, Rice, 
Vinton, Hoge, McLane, Mason, Muhlenberg, and others now 
on the right hand of God ! 



SABBATH AMONG THE HILLS. 

Never do I feel the power and the beauty of God's word 
and works more than among the hills ! Those familiar pas- 
sages in the Psalms and in the Prophecies come with energy 
to trie mind when the mountains stand around you as they 
do about the Holy City, and the hills encompass you like the 
towers and the promises of the Everlasting God. 

Once a year I make a pilgrimage to the valley where 
Williams College stands, in Berkshire County, Mass. Of so 
many in Switzerland, and England, and America have I 
said, " It is one of the loveliest in the world," that it seems 
idle to repeat it of another. But if I were to invent a place 
for a seat of learning, and a school of science and art, a site 
for a college, I would pile up wooded hills, around green 
fields, and through the openings among the mountains that 
shut out the world and support the sky I would have two 
rivers of living waters, emblems of knowledge and virtue, 
flowing gently in ; uniting within the vale, they should min- 
gle in the midst of a grove ; and then, in one broader and 
deeper stream, they should flow on through another gateway, 
with verdant meadows and wild flowers on its banks, into the 
world to be made gladder and better for its healing and sav- 
ing power. 

So is this happy valley. It was a beautiful Providence 
which guided a soldier, who fell in battle with the Indians 



7° IRENMUS LETTERS. 

before the war of our Revolution, to select this spot in the 
wilderness as the seat of a school, now a College called Wil- 
liams, his own name, and it is quite likely that so long as 
grass grows and rivers run, and hills stand, and men live and 
learn, this place will rejoice in the wisdom that ordained his 
choice, and will call his memory blessed. 

Here, then, I come once more, on the return of the Col- 
lege Commencement season. A few hours ago I was swelter- 
ing in the heats of the great city. I am sitting in my over- 
coat now, on a piazza, and am very cool, if not comforta- 
ble. The mercury was 90 in the house in town ; it is here 
about 65, and as it is raining hard, and a tremendous thun- 
der-storm has clarified the atmosphere, the change is so 
refreshing as to be truly exhilarating. It is a sort of magical 
transformation that sets one down in such a high valley as 
this, in the midst of the mountains, so soon and suddenly 
from the heart of a great city ! And its enjoyments have 
become so well and widely known, that hundreds who have 
tastes to appreciate the intellectual festivities, as well as the 
natural beauties and enjoyments of the region, flock hither 
at this season, and make a high holiday of it in the early 
summer. This season we miss some who were wont to be 
here, but the place is full of guests. 

EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY. 

June 29. — Sabbath. Rain. There is no need of saying, 
"When it rains, let it rain," for when the clouds, with their 
bosoms full, get in among these hills, they stay, and it keeps 
on raining with wonderful perseverance. 

In the forenoon the annual sermon was delivered before the 
Mills Young Men's Christian Association of the College. The 
preacher was the Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., Profes- 
sor in the Union Theological Seminary of New York. His 
text was from the parable of the talents, " He that hath, unto 
him shall be given," etc. The vein of deep Christian phi- 
losophy running through the discourse imbedded in the 
mind of young men the great truth of the text that having 



SABBATH AMONG THE HILLS. 71 

is using, or the result is losing: that the use of talents 
increases them, the misuse tends to their destruction, so that 
the analogies of nature confirm the laws of divine grace. A 
more practical and important lesson the wisdom of the Great 
Teacher never taught, for in the womb of it are the embryos 
of all success in this life and of salvation after. Especially in 
this muscular-development age, when young men's minds are 
full of the glory that comes from brawn rather than brain, and 
from brain rather than heart ; when the physical is asserting 
itself over the intellectual, and both are preferred to the spir- 
itual, it was a capital idea with which Dr. Hitchcock was 
inspired, to put before these young men in the early period 
of their education the inseparable connection between the im- 
provement and the enjoyment of the talents God has granted. 
The peculiar sententiousness, the epigrammatic form of ex- 
pression, the sharp, short and incisive phrase, in which a whole 
volume of wisdom is concentrated, these are characteristic 
features of Dr. Hitchcock's way of putting things, and they 
stick like knives into the memory. The hope would spring 
up, as he spoke, that under these timely teachings these 
young men will get impressions that will tell on their entire 
lives, and bear fruit in ages far beyond the boundaries of 
time. So influence perpetuates and propagates itself. In 
lines direct and divergent, mind touches minds, and these 
others, in many devious courses, till " thoughts that breathe 
and words that burn" go out into all the earth, unto the 
ends of the world. 

In the afternoon President Chadbourne preached the ser- 
mon to the graduating class. He seized upon the pro- 
gramme or curriculum of a finished Christian education as 
marked out by the Holy Spirit in Peter, who bade those 
whom he taught to add to their faith virtue, in the old sense 
of the word, manly courage and excellence, then knowledge, 
temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity. 
Each and all of these were illustrated and enforced in such 
strong and earnest terms as to produce on the mirror of a 
lucid mind the image of a perfect character : a fully-de- 
veloped, disciplined and furnished man, thoroughly equipped 



72 IRENJE.US LETTERS, 

for the conflict and the service of a human life in an age of 
active mental and moral forces, when inaction is treason, 
and to doubt is to be destroyed. 

Toward evening it is the habit of this College, on the Sab- 
bath preceding Commencement, to meet its friends in the 
Mission Park, where in 1806, by the shelter of a haystack, 
five students prayed American missions into being. There 
a white marble has been set up, with a globe on its summit, 
and the names of the young men on its face. Around this 
monument, under the shade of giant trees, and beneath the 
canopy of the sky, we sing the songs of missionary devotion, 
listen to rousing words, and pray for a fresh baptism of the 
spirit of the men who made this spot immortal in the mem- 
ory of the Church. In this cut-of-door, under the trees 
meeting, some years ago, I met the Hon. James A. Garfield 
for the first time, and heard his voice in the cause of Christian 
missions. To-day the ground was so wet with recent rain, 
that we met in the house of God, made with hands, instead 
of the groves, "his first temple." The venerable ex-Presi- 
dent, Mark Hopkins, presided, and spoke with vigor that 
showed the fire of Christian love brightens as it nears its 
consummation in joys supernal: Dr. Hitchcock threw his 
soul into the communion, and talked with us of the Christ 
in conscious Christian aggression on a world to be saved : 
Dr. R. R. Booth, of New York city, a graduate of this Col- 
lege in the class of 1849, stirred all hearts with a fervid 
appeal that the birthplace of American missions might 
always be filled and be glorified by the spirit of them whose 
works had in 72 years made the Gospel to surround the 
globe. 

Later in the evening the Alumni spent an hour in the 
chapel praying together, Professor Perry presiding. And so 
closed the day : a great day : a day of high intellectual and 
spiritual power, when minds and hearts of educated, think- 
ing men rose into the loftier ranges of Christian enjoyment, 
and on the mount of vision said one to another, " It is good 
to be here." 



A SERVICE OF SONG. 73 



A SERVICE OF SONG. 

It was in the village of Litchfield, Conn., where and when 
we met of a Sabbath evening for a service of song. 

Services of praise or song are frequent, consisting, for 
the most part, in singing miscellaneous hymns, one after 
another, with no special relation to each other, or to any spe- 
cific point of doctrine or duty. An hour may thus be passed 
with delight, but without much profit beyond the enjoyment 
of the song. Our service contemplated something more. 
And, having frequently introduced the same thing into the 
parlor, at thronged watering-places on Sabbath evening, to 
the great satisfaction of the guests, who enter into it with 
zest, fervor and spirit, I am quite willing to think the plan 
has some merit of its own to commend it. The idea is to 
make the singing of successive hymns answer the higher 
purpose of praising God, while it illustrates, enforces and 
tenderly impresses religious truth on the hearts of those 
who sing and hear. To this end, a portion of Scripture is 
selected and as many hymns arranged as can be conveniently 
sung within the time allowed, and these hymns are to be 
specifically adapted to apply the portion of divine truth. If 
the congregation has a choir the hymns may be given to it 
for rehearsal, and in any case it is desirable that no time be 
lost in " getting ready to sing" after the hymn is announced 
and read. But the service will be more happily exhibited 
by giving the programme as we conducted it at Litchfield. 
The subject and the order may be varied to meet the taste 
and habits of the people. 

HYMN. 

11 Come let us join our cheerful songs, 
With angels round the throne : 
Ten thousand thousand are their tongues, 
But all their joys are one." 



74 IREN^US LETTERS. 



PRAYER. 

Reading the Scriptures: Matt, xi : 25-30. The words on 
which our minds will dwell this evening are these : " Come 
unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." Rest is the theme. 

If, on the stillness of this Sabbath evening air, a voice 
should come down to us from the lips that spake as never 
man spake, no sweeter words than these could fall upon the 
ears of listening men. Rest. I will give you rest. Wearied, 
worn and ready to sink beneath the heat and burdens of the 
day, we long for. rest. It is found in the blessed Gospel 
which brings immortality to light. First, let us meditate 
the blessedness of rest on the Christian Sabbath. It comes 
to us in the midst of the cares, toils and even the pursuit 
of pleasures, and every heart welcomes its holy, peaceful, 
refreshing presence. Tired nature's sweet restorer, more than 
sleep. The whole earth rejoices in its rest. The beasts of 
burden rest. Is it fancy that the fields and flowers, the sun- 
shine and meadow streams are sweeter and brighter when 
the Sabbath comes ? Let us sing two or three songs of the 
Sabbath rest : 

" Welcome sweet day of rest, 
That saw the Lord arise ; 
Welcome to this reviving breast, 
And these rejoicing eyes." 



u Thine earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love, 
But there's a nobler rest above." 

And the words of the Saviour were an invitation to rest in 
him. Come unto me, and I will give you rest : rest from 
the weary load of sorrow and of sin : we are all sinners and 
therefore we are all sufferers. Every heart knoweth its own 
bitterness, and there is none that has escaped the common 
lot. Many wear the tokens of sorrow : and many an aching 
heart hangs out no signal of distress. Unto you who feel 
sin an evil and bitter thing, and would find peace of con- 






A SERVICE OF SONG. 75 

science, sweet forgiveness, the Saviour says, " Come unto 
me." Unto you who are bowing down under sorrows that 
no loving words of human sympathy can assuage, the mes- 
sage of the healer and the comforter comes in these words 
of divine compassion : " I will give you rest." Come and 
cast all your care on him : take him as your Saviour from 
sin : as the rock of your salvation : the consolation and joy 
of your hearts, while we sing : 

" Sweet the moments, rich in blessing, 
Which before the cross I spend, 
Life and health and peace possessing 
From the sinner's dying friend. 

" Here I'll sit forever viewing 

Mercy's streams in streams of blood ; 
Precious drops, my soul bedewing, 
Plead and claim my peace with God." 



" Just as I am, without one plea 
But that thy blood was shed for me, 
And that thou bid'st me come to thee, 
O Lamb of God, I come ! 

11 Just as I am, and waiting not 
To rid my soul of one dark blot, 
To thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, 
O Lamb of God, I come I" 



*' Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish, 
Come ! at God's altar fervently kneel ; 
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish : 
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal I 

" Joy of the desolate, Light of the straying, 

Hope, when all others die, fadeless and pure, 
Here speaks the Comforter, in God's name saying, 
11 Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure I" 



" Jesus, pitying Saviour, hear me ; 
Draw thou near me ; 
Turn thee, Lord, in grace to me, 
For thou knowest all my sorrow ; 
Night and morrow 
Doth my cry go up to thee. 



7 6 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

11 Peace I cannot find : oh, take me, 
Lord, and make me 
From the yoke of evil free ; 
Calm this longing never-sleeping, 

Still my weeping, 
Grant me hope once more in thee. 

" Here I bring my will, oh take it ; 
Thine, Lord, make it ; 
Calm this troubled heart of mine : 
In thy strength I too may conquer ; 
Wait no longer ; 
Show in me thy grace divine. 

And then comes Rest in Heaven : O blessed rest : the 
rest that remains: infinite, eternal rest: rest in God. Eye 
hath not seen, ear hath not heard what waits for them who 
enter into that rest. The prophets of old : the poets of all 
time : dying saints : have had visions of that rest, and their 
songs of praise have helped to lift us heavenward, while 
wrestling and toiling here below. Let us sing : 

" Jerusalem, my happy home, 
Name ever dear to me, 
When shall my labors have an end 
In joy and peace and thee." 

And when we had sung two or three hymns of heaven, of 
which there are so many so precious that we never weary of 
them, I read some of the noblest stanzas of old Latin hymns, 
which have come along down the ages, getting strength, 
beauty and glory as they came: the faith and hope and 
blood of successive saints, martyrs and confessors ringing in 
their notes of triumphant harmony : 

" For thee, O dear, dear country, 

Mine eyes their vigils keep ; 
For very love, beholding 

Thy happy name, they weep. 
The mention of thy glory 

Is unction to the breast, 
And medicine in sickness, 

And love, and life, and rest 



A SERVICE OF SONG. 77 

11 O one, O only mansion ! 
O paradise of joy ! 
Where tears are ever banished, 
And smiles have no alloy. 

" Thou hast no shore, fair ocean I 

Thou hast no time, bright day ! 
Dear fountain of refreshment 

To pilgrims far away ! 
Upon the Rock of Ages 

They raise the holy tower ; 
Thine is the victor's laurel, 

And thine the golden dower ! 

" Jerusalem, the Golden, 

With milk and honey blest, 
Beneath thy contemplation 

Sink heart and voice opprest. 
I know not, oh, I know not, 

What social joys are there ! 
What radiancy of glory, 

What light beyond compare. 

" And when I fain would sing them, 
My spirit fails and faints ; 
And vainly would it image 
The assembly of the saints. 

11 They stand, those halls of Syon, 

Conjubilant with song, 
And bright with many an angel, 

And all the martyr-throng ; 
The Prince is ever in them, 

The daylight is serene ; 
The pastures of the blessed 

Are decked in glorious sheen. 

" There is the throne of David, 

And there, from care released, 
The song of them that triumph, 

The shout of them that feast ; 
And they who, with their Leader, 

Have conquered in the fight, 
For ever, and for ever, 

Are clad in robes of white ! 



k 



78 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

M O holy, placid harp-notes 
Of that eternal hymn ! 
O sacred, sweet refection, 
And peace of seraphim ! 

M Oh, none can tell thy bulwarks, 

How gloriously they rise ! 
Oh, none can tell thy capitals 

Of beautiful device ! 
Thy loveliness oppresses 

All human thought and heart ; 
And none, O Peace, O Syon, 

Can sing thee as thou art ! 

" O fields that know no sorrow ! 
O state that fears no strife ! 
O princely bowers ! O land of flowers ! 
O home, and realm of life !" 

And we closed the service with the appropriate doxology : 

" Hallelujah to the Lamb who hath purchased our pardon, 
We'll praise him again when we pass over Jordan." 

The interest certainly increased every moment, as the ser- 
vice advanced : the people catching its intent, joining with 
growing emotions in the songs, as they gave expression to the 
longing desires of every living heart. So many afterwards 
asked for repetition of the service, it was evident that it was 
not in vain. 

Any other theme might be chosen and developed in the 
same way ; as many hymns being sung under each division 
as the time would permit. An hour and a half will fly away 
in such a delightful exercise, and many an ardent worshipper 
will then exclaim : 

" My willing soul would stay 
In such a frame as this : 
And sit and sing herself away 
To everlasting bliss." 



i 



CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH. 79 



CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH. 

The Hon. William E. Dodge stirred the Philadelphia Chris- 
tians a few nights ago with some plain but very timely words. 
He was on the platform in a great meeting gathered to pro- 
mote a General Council of Presbyterians, to be held in the 
City of Brotherly Love. Mr. Dodge told them that the chil- 
dren of the Church are systematically taught to neglect the 
Church, and while the clergy and others are laying plans to 
gather their great men in council from all parts of the world, 
it would be well to look into a little matter in their own fami- 
lies and at their church doors. 

Mr. Dodge referred to the practice — now almost universal 
— of allowing the children to attend the Sunday-school, and 
then to be absent from the church. His remarks on this 
habit, which he condemned most earnestly, were loudly 
applauded, the people being convicted in their own conscience, 
as the men of Jerusalem were when Jesus said, " He that is 
without sin among you let him cast the first stone." 

I was going to church last Sabbath morning, and as I 
approached it, a procession, or rather a throng of children, not 
infants, but boys and girls of ten and twelve years of age, 
with books and papers in hand, were pouring out of the lec- 
ture and Sunday-school room, and going down street, away 
from the church ! Had they been suddenly seized with ill- 
ness, so that it was necessary for them to get home and into 
bed? Had the labors of the school been so severe that the 
poor things were exhausted, and must find rest and recrea- 
tion without delay ? 

Mr. Dodge thought the children went home and spent the 
day in reading Sunday-school books, a large part of which, he 
said, were not fit to be read on Sunday or any other day. If 
they do not spend the day at home, it is better than I fear, for 
in the case of the boys it is often true that the Sabbath is 
made a play-day, and the Sunday-school is the only hour of 
confinement to which they submit. 

But it is not about the way in which the children spend the 



8o IRENMUS LETTERS. 

Sabbath that I am now writing. It is the fact that they do not 
attend church with their parents regularly, sitting in the same 
pew, and receiving the regular instruction of the sanctuary. 
The time was when this was the uniform, steady and excellent 
habit of all Christian families. It is not so now. It ought 
to be so again. The Sunday-school has led to the change 
for the worse. It should now lead the way in a reform. 

Were I the pastor of a church in which this evil prevailed, 
I would break it up in two ways : first, by so regulating the 
Sunday-school that it should not hinder but should posi- 
tively help the children to attend the church service : and, 
secondly, by so enlightening the darkness of the parental 
mind that the sin and misery of the present habit should 
appear to the most benighted. I would show them that the 
church, the ordinances of God's house, the regular worship 
in the sanctuary, will prove to be more useful in the forma- 
tion of character, and in training for usefulness and heaven, 
than the Sunday-school can be: that the church is the home 
for the soul of the child as well as for the parent, and for its 
power no human substitute has yet been invented : that the 
habit of church worship should be formed in early child- 
hood, and no means of pleasing or profiting the young are 
to be compared with it, or put in the place of it : and if but 
one, the church or the school, can be. enjoyed, the church is 
to be prized and the school abandoned. This is the plain 
truth, and that is what we want. 

Then there are two other matters to be attended to : the 
Sunday-school must not be held at such an hour as to make 
it tedious or trying for the children to go to church. It is 
quite likely that the modern contrivances for making Sunday- 
schools amusing have given them a distaste for the more 
solemn services of the sanctuary. If so, the amusement is 
a sin. The school should feed the church. Children ought 
to be led by one into the other : exposed to the preaching of 
the Gospel, taught the ways of God's house, and brought tip 
under its influence, with all its hallowed and elevating 
influences. 

To make this service attractive to children, it may be that 



CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH. 81 

the preaching of the present day may have to be modified in 
some pulpits. But to be modified it need not be babyfied. 
The namby-pamby twaddle talked to children, and called 
"children's preaching," is just about as palatable to them 
when they are old enough to go to Sunday-school as pap is 
to a boy of ten. Nothing is more attractive to a child of 
Christian parents than the Bible; itself a wonderful picture 
and story book, more wonderful than all others together; 
and he is a great preacher to parents who will hold up these 
pictures and stories to the entranced attention of the 
young. 

Dr. Bevan says that in London he was wont to devote a 
part of each morning service to the special wants of the chil- 
dren, and so made them feel that they were an important 
part of the congregation. Mr. Dodge was so thoroughly 
applauded by his Philadelphia hearers that he was sure they 
knew the state of things there to be just as bad as it is here 
in New York. And now I have a letter from a pastor in Bal- 
timore, who tells me how it is in that fair city. He writes : 

"The difficulty with us — and it is a very serious one — is that children 
are not brought to church as formerly, and as they certainly should be. It is 
a painful sight*to see the large proportion of children who, at the close of 
the morning-Sabbath school, instead of going into church, go home ; and 
what renders the evil more alarming is that parents not only seem to make 
no effort to arrest the practice, but approve it ; or, to say the least, apologize. 
The plea is that to go to Sabbath-school, and then to church, is too much 
for children ; the confinement being so long as to prove neither healthful 
physically or religiously. Some even go so far as to contend that the Sab- 
bath-school answers all the same as church-going, and is perhaps better 
adapted for children. 

11 Now as to the matter of physical endurance, is the present race of chil- 
dren more feeble and effeminate than were their fathers and mothers ? The 
latter were trained to go to church as punctually as to Sabbath-school ; and 
none of them were probably the worse, but very much the better for so 
doing. The plea is only one of the indications of the increasing flabbiness 
of the piety of our day. 

"And as to substituting the Sabbath -school for the sanctuary, what will 
be the effect of this upon the Church of the future ? On Solomon's prin- 
ciple that the training of the child determines the character of the man, 
what will be the proportion of church-goers in another generation ? The 



82 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

New York Observer of forty or fifty years hence will have to speak even 
more urgently than in the recent editorial on the 4 Falling off of Church- 
going.' The Great Enemy does his work little by little, perhaps, but he 
does it ; and whilst parents, church officers, and possibly pastors, are sleep- 
ing on this subject, the tares are being sown. From different and widely 
separated portions of our country the writer learns that the evil exists, and 
is, perhaps, increasing. Is it not time to call a halt ? Take the children 
to church. L." 

What more can I say than unto you has been said ? Here 
is an evil that is sore under the sun : in the Sunday-school 
and the Church : every teacher has a duty in the matter and 
every parent and pastor. Their combined action can work 
a speedy reform. 



THE SHAKERS OF CANTERBURY. 

Some seven or eight miles south of the spot where I am 
now writing, and in full view from the hill-top on which our 
farm and farm-house repose, is the Shaker village in Canter- 
bury, N. H. We drove over there yesterday. So much 
romance, sentiment and poetry have been invested in these 
Shaker communities, that one is hardly prepared for the 
hard, practical work-a-day communities they are, when he 
comes to see them. They are related to the Dervishes of 
Turkey, the Monks of Italy and the Saints of the Desert. 
One touch of madness makes them all akin: the blunder 
that to be outside of duty is doing it : that God is pleased 
with those who shirk his precepts, and set up their own 
vagaries in place of his will. Freeman, the Pocasset Advent- 
ist, slew his little daughter under a mistaken idea of duty, 
the Shakers sacrifice the husband, wife, father and mother, 
under an error as wild and as fatal as the fanatic of Cape 
Cod has made. 

Shaker villages are substantially alike. A few large, barn- 
like houses, pierced with many windows and a few doors, a 
meeting-house, shops, and barns for the crops and cattle, all 



THE SHAKERS OF CANTERBURY. 83 

near together, no ornament, no architectural taste, nothing 
to please or to offend the eye, but rigid lines, perfect cleanli- 
ness and order, these are the principal features of the settle- 
ments. 

We drove up to a door over which was the sign " Trustees' 
Office." Our party was large — fourteen — and we were look- 
ing for something like a hotel, but there was nothing to be 
found more public than this. We were welcomed at the 
door by a neatly-attired and prim Sister, who pleasantly 
invited us in, and gave us seats in the reception-room. 
Another sister joined her, both of them bright, smiling, 
cheerful women, and, without waiting to be asked, they gave 
us ice-water, and also mint water, a pleasant beverage. 
Their kind attentions, especially to the ladies of the party, 
were grateful in their simplicity. Presently Elders Blinn and 
Karnes entered and gave us a cordial welcome. Their cheer- 
ful, animated conversation, the interest they showed in the 
topics of the day, and their readiness to make us acquainted 
with their mode of life, won upon our regard, and we felt 
that we were with friends. 

Elder Blinn invited us to walk through the village, the 
houses and barns. Most of the company followed him in what 
proved to be a pleasant and entertaining stroll. The stalls 
for the cows, which were in the milking-way at that hour, 
were scrupulously clean. The milk-maids, mostly young, did 
not take kindly to the exhibition, and rather hid their faces 
under cover of the cows. The cows knew their own stalls, 
over each of which was the name of its tenant. The school- 
room was supplied with all modern improvements, but school 
was out for the day. The shops were models of neatness 
and convenience ; a place for everything, and everything in 
its place, being evidently the law of the house. Machinery 
and factories have cheapened the production of many articles 
which the Shakers once made, so that their line of business 
is much restricted. But they do nothing which they do not 
intend to do well, and their work in the dairy, the garden, the 
field or the house, is honestly done and commands its price. 

Elder Karnes remained with me while the others surveyed 



84 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

the village, which, being as nearly like other Shaker villages 
as one pea is like another, was not to me a novelty. Our 
conversation ran along : 

/. — How many persons have you now in your community? 
* Elder K. — About one hundred and fifty. In years past the 
number has been much larger, as many as three hundred at 
one time. 

/. — Then your numbers rather diminish than increase. 
Do you have frequent accessions to your connection ? 

Elder K. — Nearly every month in the year persons come 
who wish to join. But they are mostly broken-down, dis- 
gusted and discouraged people, who think it a sort of asylum 
for played-out parties — they soon get tired of it and pass on. 
We receive none as members until they show that they 
understand our principles and intelligently adopt them. 
Even our own members are not restrained when they insist 
upon going. If they have brought property into the com- 
munity, they are paid what is just if they leave, and no one 
is sent away empty. 

/. — How then are your numbers recruited, as you do not 
marry, and some must die ? 

Elder K. — Children are brought to us by their parents and 
guardians, and we bring them up in our ways. When they 
have reached mature years, and are disposed to do so, they 
join by signing the covenant. The boys are less inclined 
than girls are to fall in with us. Boys are more restless, 
ambitious, and disposed to go into the world. Hence we 
always have a much larger number of women than of men 
in the community. 

/. — You are a corporation, I suppose, so that you can hold 
your property and people under law? 

Elder K. — Nay, we are not incorporated : our bond is a 
voluntary covenant by which the management is confided to 
trustees, in whose name the property is held and all business 
is done. We have between three and four thousand acres of 
land here, and a farm in the State of New York, where we 
raise wheat and sell it, and we buy our flour here, for this 
is not a wheat-growing region. We have no trouble from 



THE SHAKERS OF CANTERBURY. 85 

the want of a legal charter, and it is not the custom of our 
people to put themselves into such a relation to the State. 

/. — You have a post-office under the General Government, 
I noticed as I came in ; is that for your own convenience, or 
the public generally? 

Elder K. — For all who choose to use it. Our rules allow 
families of parents and children to live near us in a degree 
of relation with the Society, but they manage their own tem- 
poral concerns : parents are required to be kind and dutiful 
to each other, to bring up their children in a godly manner, 
and manage their property wisely, and so long as they con- 
tinue to conform to the religious faith and principles of the 
Society they can stay, and no longer. Here they can enjoy 
spiritual privileges and live away from the world, while they 
preserve their own domestic relations. 

/. — This feature of Shakerism is quite new to me : how do 
you train the children given to you by their parents ? 

Elder K. — A good common school education is given them, 
and if any one discovers genius and special aptness to learn, 
he is provided with the best instruction in higher branches 
of knowledge. They are all taught in the Holy Scriptures, 
particularly the life and lessons of Christ and the apostles. 

At this point in our conversation, Elder Blinn returned 
with the party of visitors, and in reply to some inquiries 
which I did not make, he went into an explanation of the 
religious doctrine of the Shakers. This is as unintelligible 
as the mysticism of the Buddhists, or the transcendentalism 
of Emerson. 

The priestess of Shakerism was a woman, Ann Lee, who 
was born in England, and coming to this country, had a 
following of believers who formed a Community near Sche- 
nectad}^, N. Y., where she died. The sect discards the mar- 
riage and parental relation, leads a life of isolation from the 
world, men and women living side by side, in all the gentle 
relations except the dearest and sweetest, refusing to obey 
the first command that God gave to his creatures : thus 
enacting rebellion bylaw as the basis of their Society. What 
is their idea of the Heavenly Father? 



S6 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

They teach that God exists in a twofold nature, male and 
female, and manifests himself in the creation of the sexes in 
"his own likeness." Jesus, the Son of God, was the male 
manifestation of the Fatherhood, and in these latter days 
Ann Lee was born as the revelation of the Motherhood of 
God, and so we have in Shakerism a religion that enjoys all 
the communications of the Dual Deity in whom we live. 
They find passages of the Bible which they hold to favor 
this unintelligible statement. They superadd a pure Chris- 
tian system of practical duty in which the moral law is fully 
enforced and a life of simple godliness is inculcated. So far 
as the knowledge and belief of their friends and enemies 
extend, they are true to their principles, upright in their 
deportment, honest in their dealings with the world, and the 
breath of scandal or suspicion of vice among themselves has 
never sullied their good name. This is a noble record. 

Such a people cannot be very numerous in this world, for 
very obvious reasons. There are eighteen communities of 
them in the United States, nine being in New England, three 
in the State of New York, four in Ohio, and two in Kentucky. 
As some of these communities are very small, it is not prob- 
able that they number in all more than 2500 members in the 
whole country. It is not quite a hundred years since Ann 
Lee died, the mother of Shakers, and another hundred years 
will not see the race more numerous than it is now. It is 
more likely to die out than to grow. 

Elder Blinn put into my hands the printed programme of 
their next Sunday service, to consist chiefly of singing. The 
world's people are welcomed, and seats are provided for them. 
Dancing, or a measured march, is a frequent part of the 
service, which is conducted with deliberation and without 
enthusiasm. Quietness and self-control are cardinal beauties 
of the Shaker system. 

We left our kind friends with mutual expressions of regard. 
Grateful to them for their kindness, we drove homeward in 
the cool of a lovely summer evening, taking Loudon Ridge, 
Jones' Mill and Shell-Camp Lake in the way. The moon 
stood over the mountains in glory indescribable, her silvery 



MINISTERS' PAY IN OLD TIMES. 87 

sheen clothing woods and waters, meadows and hillsides. 
So still, so calm, so pure, perhaps all the more so because 
we brought such elements with us from Shaker Village; but 
as the sound of a steam-engine on rail or river has never 
yet disturbed the serene repose of this sequestered vale, we 
could for the moment enjoy the heavens and the earth as if 
they were summarily comprehended in the town of Gilman- 
ton. 



MINISTERS' PAY IN OLD TIMES. 

Isaac Smith was the first settled minister in Gilmanton, 
New Hampshire. The town had " hired a preacher M before, 
and William Parsons had been with the people some ten 
years, being hired from year to year. But in 1774 they called 
Mr. Smith after he had been well tested by preaching some 
months in Jotham Gilman's barn. A town meeting was then 
held, and it was voted to give Isaac Smith a call to become 
the settled minister, and to give him ^50, lawful money, for 
his salary the first year, increasing £$ yearly until it became 
^75, which was to remain his full salary annually so long as 
he continued in the ministry, he reserving three Sabbaths each 
year to visit his friends. 

The town also voted to give him £7$ toward his settlement 
if he accepted the call, one third in money, and two thirds in 
labor and materials toward his house when he builds. 

But there was one more point to be cleared up before he 
could see his way to accept the call, and another town meet- 
ing was called, when it was voted that " Mr. Smith's whole 
salary should be continued to him in sickness, if necessary." 
This form of expression was derived from his own letter of 
acceptance, in which he called their attention to the fact 
that no provision was made for him in case of his sickness, 
and he said he should expect them to pay him his full 
salary or " such a part of it as shall be judged a competent 



88 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

support by disinterested persons." To this they agreed, and 
he was settled Nov. 30, 1774. 

Three several and distinct provisions are made here that 
are worth being noted in these later days on which the end 
of the world has come. 

1. Mr. Smith was manifestly settled for life. His salary 
was to be continued " so long as he continued in the min- 
istry." They were not bound to pay him unless he continued 
to be a minister. If he became unsound in the faith, or 
immoral in life, the same men who put him into the min- 
istry could put him out, and the people would be released 
from the contract. But so long as he lived in the ministry 
they were bound to support him. 

2. They were to support him whether he could preach or 
not. If sickness overtook him, or the infirmities of old age 
came on, they were not to turn him out like a superannuated 
horse to starve on the common. This contract they carried 
out, and having labored with them forty-three years, he died 
among them at the age of 73 ; and they built him a tomb. 

3. The people at the outset, and before he was settled, 
voted in the terms of the call that he might take an annual 
recess or vacation of three weeks. That is a fact worth 
looking at a moment. It is not a modern invention this 
shutting up the church for successive Sabbaths while the 
minister goes aside awhile for rest. Call it a time to go and 
visit his friends, or to go fishing, or to the mountains, as 
long ago as before the Revolution, w T hich is our line of demar- 
cation between ancient and modern, the good people of New 
England — of Gilmanton at least — gave and the minister 
took a vacation. It was good for him and it was good for 
them. It is no new thing. And there is no evil in it. In 
the country a house of worship is not closed because the 
preacher is absent. We used to call it a " deacon's meeting " 
when an elder or deacon led the service. At such a meeting 
in my own church, one of the elders took the desk, and, 
opening the hymn book, said : " Our pastor is absent : let us 
sing to his praise the 94th psalm." At such services the 
prayers were offered by the praying men, and a printed sermon 



MINISTERS' PA Y IN OLD TIMES. 89 

was read aloud by some one selected for the purpose. This 
good practice is still pursued in many places. Our city 
churches may unite, two or three, in such a service, or they 
may readily find temporary supplies in the pastor's absence. 
It is not true that preaching is the only object for which a 
church is opened, Nor is it the chief purpose. The wor- 
ship of God is the service, and the preaching is part of it, or 
an aid to it. Our Protestant ancestors swung away from this 
truth when they preferred to call God's house a " meeting 
house." That is not a bad name for it, if its meaning is 
that there they meet God and one another. But if it be used 
as a rendezvous simply, where people meet to hear a sermon, 
then the true idea of "divine service " is repudiated. 

All of which means that the minister is not necessary to 
public, acceptable and profitable worship. His work is 
arduous, and it is for his profit and that of the people that he 
take a vacation, "to visit his friends," or to go into the woods 
or to the sea-side or across the sea. But the people are not 
deprived of the privilege nor released from the duty of pub- 
lic worship because the preacher is gone away. He is not a 
priest. He is a presbyter, an elder, a teacher. He offers no 
sacrifice as the Jewish priest did, and as the Romanist pre- 
tends to. Once for all our Great High Priest made atone- 
ment. There is no more sacrifice for sin. 

It is right for ministers to retire for a season : it is wrong 
for people to neglect public worship because there is to be 
no preaching. 

But we must get back to Gilmanton and their pastor, Isaac 
Smith. He was settled in 1774, and for many years afterwards 
things went on smoothly. By and by other denominations 
began to take root and grow, where the Congregationalists 
had been the "standing order." The people became slack 
in paying their minister what they had promised, and he 
took the law on them. They had made the contract when 
they were in the capacity of a town; now it had come to 
pass that they were only one of the churches in the town. 
They appointed a committee to defend the suit or to settle 
it with Mr. Smith. They settled with him, Many thought 



QO JREN^EUS LETTERS, 

he was hard on them, but as he asked only what he had a 
right to demand, all sensible people approved of his course, 
and he retained the respect of the community to the end. 

The large and handsome house in which he lived and died 
is now the abode of bats and owls. Great shade trees stand 
in the front yard, and the ancient shrubbery, vines and flowers, 
untended, grow in luxuriant disorder, outliving the genera- 
tions of men. 



DR. MURRAY: BISHOP HUGHES. 

The sad and sudden death of Thomas Chalmers Murray 
revives the memory of his father, one of the warmest friends 
of my life. Not many years ago Nicholas Murray, " Kirwan," 
was the most popular and perhaps the most useful writer in 
the columns of the New York Observer. I cannot think of 
him without a smile on my heart, even in sadness on the death 
of a noble young man, his well-beloved son, whom I knew 
in his infancy. 

The first time that Dr. Murray came to my house he had 
with him a beautiful boy nine years old; shortly afterward 
the child sickened and died. I hastened to his home. In 
the hall he met me, and fell on my neck and wailed in the 
anguish of a strong man bowed with great grief. Six times 
the hand of his Heavenly Father put this bitter cup to the 
loving father's lips. That was sorrow piled on sorrow : clouds 
returning after the rain : yet was his great soul strong in 
God. The prevailing feature of his character, by which he 
was better known than any other, was his overflowing, genial, 
hearty good-humor. As he made his mark on the times, and 
commanded wide respect in the world and the Church, it is 
to the honor of religion that his walk and his conversation 
compelled all men who met him to know that the highest 
type of the Christian is reflected in the cheerful, useful 
man. 

When he was called to Elizabeth town, one man only did 



DR. MURRAY; BISHOP HUGHES. 91 

not concur in the cordial invitation. After the pastor was 
settled, and had been preaching some weeks, the dissatisfied 
parishioner said to him : " Mr. Murray, I hope you understand 
that I have nothing against you personally, but I do not like 
your preaching." 

" Well, I agree with you perfectly," said the pastor ; " I do 
not think much of it myself." 

The man was so palpably met by this remark, that he gave 
in on the spot, and they were the best of friends ever after. 

Both of his parents were Irish Roman Catholics. Many 
a time in his childhood he had crept on his knees into a 
darkened room in his father's house to confess his sins to a 
priest, and the nonsense, inconsistency and absurdity of the 
system of religion in which he was instructed appeared to 
him in his childhood. When he came to this country, and 
fell under better influences, he became intelligently a con- 
verted man. I was walking with him one day, when he 
related the experiences of his early life, and the facts that 
impressed his young mind with the folly of the Roman 
religion. Our walk ended, and as we put our feet on the 
doorstep of my house, I said to him : 

" Write this all out, and let us print it." 

He had not thought of it, but struck by the suggestion, he 
encouraged me to believe that he would. This was the 
origin of the " Kirwan Letters." He addressed them to 
Bishop Hughes, like himself a native-born Irishman. They 
were printed weekly in the New York Observer, the first 
number appearing February 6, 1847. They made a greater 
excitement than any series of papers in the religious press of 
our times. They were read by Romanists as well as Protest- 
ants. Meetings were held weekly in this city attended by 
Romanists, when one of these letters was read and discussed. 
The truth of all the facts was obvious to all who heard. 
They knew how it was themselves. They had been there. 
The wit of the letters was Irish wit, and they relished it as 
they do potheen at home and whiskey here. Bishop Hughes 
was bothered immensely. On all hands he was challenged to 
answer them. Finally he was goaded into the ring. He 



92 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

began a series of letters in reply, but in the midst of them 
he was called to Halifax ! This was handled cleverly by Kir- 
wan in a second series, in which he pursued the subject and 
the Bishop w T ith a vigor that was almost ferocious. It was 
impossible to answer him. If any one was equal to that task 
Bishop Hughes was. He was head and shoulders above any 
man of his sect in this country. And he was witty as well 
as wise. The New England Society invited him to their 
annual dinner. Many thought it an outrage to ask him. 
But he paid them off better than their critics could have done, 
telling them that his sensations on being there were like 
those of Pat : riding home drunk in his cart he got sound 
asleep : some wags stopped his horse, and took him away, 
leaving Pat to his dreams in the cart. Waking in the morn- 
ing and rubbing his eyes, with a dim memory of the night 
before, he says : " Be I Pat, or be I not? If I am Pat, I've 
lost a horse ; if I be not Pat, I have found a cart." 

The Bishop's audience laughed, of course ; but it was 
a modified mirth, that came very near the other thing. 

Bishop Hughes rarely had the worst of it in debate or 
dinner-table talk. A new New York lawyer rather got him 
once. It was in those good old virtuous days we hear so 
much of, when the Common Council frequently gave great 
dinners at the city's expense, and they were usually given on 
Blackwell's Island, in the midst of the criminals and paupers 
who are there lodged and fed. At one of these dinners 
Bishop Hughes was a guest, and he had spoken of his deep 
interest in the people there confined. N. B. Blunt, Esq., rose 
and proposed a toast : " Bishop Hughes, the chief pastor of 
this Island!" 

Then, as now, the Bishop's people furnished the " larger 
half" of the inhabitants; members confirmed in the church 
in their youth and now doubly confirmed in pauperism and 
crime. It was so then, is now, and always will be, until the 
second reformation. Dr. Murray saw the relations of Roman- 
ism to the poverty, vice and misery of the people, and his 
letters brought these truths so fearfully to the sunlight as to 
startle the public mind. When the first series of those let- 



DR. MURRAY: BISHOP HUGHES. 93 

ters was finished, I took them to Mr. John F. Trow, who 
printed them in a little book which could be sold for 
ten or fifteen cents, and thousands on thousands of them 
were sold. They had already become famous in other lands. 
In Ireland they were immediately reprinted with notes, by 
the late Dr. S. O. Edgar, author of " Edgar's Variations of 
Popery." They went in Ireland like wild-fire. In districts 
where Scriptural schools were enjoyed the Roman Catholics 
read these letters eagerly. And many believed when they 
read. They were translated into the French and German 
languages, and then in the East they were rendered by the 
missionaries into Oriental tongues, until their lines went out 
into all the earth. 

It was not denied that Nicholas Murray was the author. 
His signature was borrowed from an Irish preacher famous 
once, and of whom a very entertaining sketch might be 
made. But there were many little incidents in the letters 
that revealed the authorship, and the pastor of Elizabeth 
became suddenly as famous in this country as Goldsmith or the 
other Smith whose first name was Sidney, were in their time. 
He was sent for everywhere to preach. He was not an 
orator, and those who for the first time heard him missed 
the brilliant sparkles of that keen wit and broad humor which 
illumined his letters. But I have seen the old Broadway 
Tabernacle packed and overflowing by eager multitudes 
thrilled by the lofty, burning and mighty words of truth 
with which he denounced the great anti-Christian rebellion 
of Rome. In the height of this sudden popularity he took 
his seat in the General Assembly at Pittsburgh in 1849. 
Named for the Moderator's chair, no one was thought of in 
competition with him, and he was elected by acclamation. 

I had strong hope that his son, who bore the name of 
Scotland's greatest preacher, Thomas Chalmers, would per- 
petuate his father's fame and usefulness. Like his father, he 
was a graduate of Williams College, the one in the year 1826, 
the other in 1869. Displaying a fine taste and great facility 
in the acquisition of languages, he became a remarkable 
linguist, and was filling such a chair in the young but already 



94 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

celebrated Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, when he 
was called to die in the very spring of his life, and is now 
laid by the side of his father and mother in the old cemetery 
of the First church of Elizabeth. 

While the helm of the Universe is held by Infinite Wisdom, 
Love and Power, I have not the shade of a doubt that all is 
well. But there are many things hard to be understood, 
and I am glad to believe that what we know not now we 
shall hereafter. Dr. Sprague came home to find on his table 
a telegram saying, Dr. Murray died last night. It was 
like the fall of a thunderbolt. The same bolt fell on me and 
I was stunned. He was not old when he died with the battle- 
harness on, but he cried, "My work is done," and fell into 
the arms of death. And now his son, in the morning, full of 
promise and hope, is taken away! The more who die, the 
more for them to do who live. Let us put on the whole 
armor of God : fight the good fight : be ready always to be 
offered, and so much the more as we see the day approaching. 



TWO HOURS IN COURT. 

An errand of mercy led me into the Court of General Ses- 
sions, Judge Cowing on the bench. Mr. Russell, the Assist- 
ant District- Attorney, was so kind as to bring me within the 
bar, and give me a seat where I could see, hear and apprehend 
what was going on. 

The room was filled with a motley crowd; most of the 
people were friends of prisoners, witnesses summoned, jurors, 
or parties interested in the cases to be heard. No trial of 
great public interest was on hand, and the company was there- 
fore only the daily gathering in this hall of justice. Mr. Rus- 
sell had the calendar of cases in his hand, a long and fearful 
list, and as he called one after another, the lawyer in behalf 
of the prisoner came forward, and he and Mr. Russell arranged 
for its disposal. They were all criminal cases. But one 
class of lawyers appeared, and only three of them in all the 



TWO HOURS IN COURT. 9$ 

t\venty or more cases. These were lawyers whose names are 
familiar in police reports, men employed by criminals, and 
who have made large wealth, as well as a certain reputation, 
by their practice in these courts. Yet all the criminals wore 
badges of poverty. This was something to think of. They 
could find money to make lawyers rich, but they were very 
poor themselves. There were no #/</ criminals. It was dread- 
ful to observe the youth of the prisoners, male and female. 
With only one or two exceptions, they were under twenty 
years of age. 

. Three young roughs stood up before the Judge, pleaded 
guilty to a charge of assaulting an officer, and one of them 
made a little set speech in extenuation of their offence. They 
were sent to prison for three months, and went off as unaffected 
as if they had been dismissed from school. Two women were 
arraigned for stealing ; coarse, hardened, vulgar creatures ; 
they confessed their crimes and went up for six months. 

A tall, angular, ugly-looking woman was put to the bar. 
" A professional pickpocket," Mr. Russell said to me, as she 
stood up. One of her friends brought to her a three-year- 
old child, which she took in her arms, and pleading guilty, 
began to cry fearfully, if not tearfully. When she was sen- 
tenced to prison the cries were redoubled and the child clung 
around her neck, resisting the efforts of the officer to take it 
off. But she was obliged to part with it, — I think it was a 
baby borrowed for the occasion, — and she disappeared. 

So far every one — and 1 have mentioned but a few — had 
confessed, and there was no need of a trial. But the pressure 
of cases was so great, and such was the variety of circum- 
stances to be looked into, even when the parties pleaded 
guilty, that I said to Mr. Russell : " I wonder you do not go 
crazy: how it is possible to carry all these matters in mind, 
and be ready to speak and act intelligently in each case, 
passes my comprehension." 

I admired his patience, humanity, self-control, and judg- 
ment, but had no wish to change places with him. 

Judge Cowing seemed to be the right man in the right 
place. Calm, judicial, prompt, blending the kinder feelings 



96 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

of the man with the firm purpose of the judge, he made care- 
ful inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the criminals 
who admitted their guilt, and meted out the penalty with 
intelligent discrimination, having an eye to the welfare of 
the community and also of the prisoner. 

Two young men were arraigned for highway robbery : they 
were about 18 years old; charged with seizing a man in the 
night, and robbing him of his watch. Their plea was not 
guilty. A jury was called and sworn in. They were all very 
respectable men in appearance ; not one of them unsuitable 
to hear and decide on the evidence in such a case. The com- 
plainant was the first witness, and he testified, in German- 
English, that he was going home from a wedding party, where 
he left his wife and his hat, being somewhat excited with 
liquor ; he was set upon by these two prisoners at the bar, 
who robbed him of his watch : he seized them both : held 
one of them, and the other fled, leaving a portion of his coat 
in his hand. Calling out for help, he was heard by an officer, 
who came, meeting the escaped robber flying. Him he cap- 
tured and brought along, and coming up, took the other also 
into custody. The watch was found near the spot where he 
caught the runaway. This was one side of the story, con- 
firmed by the officer. The two rogues were examined, and 
swore that they were peacefully walking the street when 
this half-drunken man, hatless and coatless, stumbled against 
them, wanted to fight, did get into a fight, during which his 
watch was pulled off : they left him and he called the police : 
an officer appeared and took them into custody. This was 
the other side of the story. Their lawyer made a speech very 
like those we read in books, where high-sounding words and 
platitudes are made to take the place of argument and sense. 
He sought to impress the jury with the fact that this case 
involved the rights and liberties of two American citizens 
whose intelligence and virtues were entitled to respect : that 
there was no evidence against them but the story of a drunken 
vagabond who did not know at the time whether he was afoot 
or on horseback : and if on such testimony they were to be 
sent to State's Prison, then Magna Charta, Fourth of July and 



TWO HOURS /AT COURT. 97 

the Constitution were all in vaim He did not say these 
words, but that was the drift, and perhaps mine is the better 
speech. Mr. Russell followed with a brief, lucid, unimpas- 
sioned recital of the facts as proved : exhibited the coat and 
the fragment left by the flying assailant : read the law and 
decisions explaining the grade of the crime, and left the 
case. The Judge charged the jury with clearness and brevity : 
they retired, and soon returned with a verdict of guilty. The 
Judge sentenced them each to the State Prison for ten years. 

Mrs. Dr. Sayre was walking in the street a few days ago, 
when a young man, seeing a pocketbook in her hand, snatched 
it and ran. He was pursued and caught and now was brought 
to the bar. He pleaded guilty. His crime is one of the 
highest except that of murder. What would be his fate ? A 
gentleman, in whose employment he had been four years, 
came forward and said that the lad had been perfectly trust- 
worthy all that time and was without a fault. For want of 
work he had dismissed him and others, and now for months 
he had been without employment. It further appeared that 
his old mother had depended on his wages, and when these 
failed they were utterly destitute. She had urged him to 
pawn the few things they had, but he refused, and daily 
traversed the streets seeking work in vain. Desperate and 
reckless, he saw this purse in a lady's hand, snatched it and 
ran. Dr. Sayre was present and did not wish to urge extreme 
measures. Mr. Russell was satisfied that it was a case for 
judicial mercy. The boy might be saved if not sent to prison, 
but that would finish his ruin. His mother stood up by her 
boy and, with flowing tears, tried to plead for mercy. No 
one in court could refrain from weeping. Literally I do not 
think there was a dry eye. Judge Cowing set before the boy 
the enormity of his crime, gave him earnest and wholesome 
-counsel, and consigned him to the Elmira Reformatory. 

"Thank you, Judge," cried the poor mother, as she turned 
away brokenhearted, but glad to hear that her son was not 
to go to State Prison. 

I said to the Judge : " How unjust we often are in speaking 
oi your decisions! had I read in the daily papers the simple 



98 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

mention of the fact that you had let off this young robber 
with a commitment to the reformatory, I would have thought 
justice was not done. But I see that it was wise as well as 
merciful, just to society and kind to the criminal." 

" It is often very hard," he said, "to determine what is for 
the best, where discretion is left to us, but we do as well as 
we cam" 

" I have not a doubt of it," I replied ; " and I am glad I am 
not on the bench." 

" I wish you would often come here," he said, as I left the 
court. 

This was a very instructive and impressive scene. It was 
a revelation. Sermons could be made out of it. These young 
men, already hardened in crime: women thieves : children in 
the midst of vice. And this all about us : the air we breathe 
is laden with the crimes of our fellow-beings. Is there no 
balm in Gilead : is there no remedy here ? 



A DOUGHNATION PARTY. 

Perhaps you have not heard of such a party. A surprise 
party, a wedding party, even a dancing party, you may have 
attended. And it would not be strange that you are familiar 
with donation or giving visits. 

When a lady remarked to me a few days ago that she had 
attended a doughnut-an party, the name was new to me. 
But she was kind to my dulness, and explained its hidden 
meaning. 

There be many kind of nuts in the world. The butternut 
is so called because of the oil which abounds in it. It was 
once called the oilnut. The chestnut is named from the cyst, 
chest or case in which the nut is enclosed, the burr so called. 
The walnut is not a wall-nut, but comes from the Anglo- 
Saxon, walh-knuta, walnut, meaning foreign nut, as it is of 
Persian descent. Then there is the doughnut, which groweth 



A DOUGHNATION PARTY. 99 

not on a tree like unto the fruits aforesaid ; but a woman 
taking dough prepared as for the oven, and cutting it into 
shapes that please her, or more frequently making it into the 
form of a ball, or a round nut, of such size as seemeth good 
unto her, droppeth it into boiling fat, lard or oil, and when it 
is sufficiently cooked, she taketh it forth with a skimmer. 
Various are the qualities of these doughnuts, according to 
the amount of shortening and sweetening. They are of Dutch 
origin, as the walnut is Oriental, and the cruller, and oly- 
koek, are varieties of the New England doughnut, which 
holds its own against the world. Mr. Irving has embalmed 
the Dutch preparation, and the immortality he gives to what 
he puts into his books shows it is not true that " you can't eat 
your cake and keep it too." 

Fifty years ago, more or less, rather more than less, the 
annual giving-visit was a great affair in the country congre- 
gation. The minister's, salary was always of the smallest, and 
there was a fond delusion among the people that they helped 
the matter greatly by afflicting the pastor once a year with 
a spinning-bee or donation party. The term spinning-bee 
has so long been out of the speech of people, that you do not 
know what it means. In good old times, when much linen 
and woollen were wrought on looms at home, and great fac- 
tories were few and far between, every farmer's wife had her 
spinning-wheel. And as in the days of the Psalmist a man 
was famous according to his ability to chop trees, so in my 
youth a woman sought and found renown by the smoothness 
of the thread she could spin, and the elegance of the fabric 
that came from her loom. The wisest of men celebrated 
such a woman when he said : " She seeketh wool and flax, and 
worketh willingly with her hands. She layeth her hands to 
the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She maketh fine 
linen." And the Roman matron, Lucretia, at work among 
her maids was more royally employed than the Queen of 
Sheba arraying herself in all her glory. 

Therefore, when the annual giving-visit to the poor pastor 
was made, the women brought of their store of thread or 
yarn, or of the cloth they had made, while the men brought 



100 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

wood and oats, and such articles as were more in their line 
of production. As the visit included a supper, it was expected 
that the women would provide the supplies, and foremost 
among the provisions for the feast were the inevitable and 
abounding doughnuts. As everybody had them at home, 
they were no treat to anybody at the party, and it came to 
pass that, of the bushels of the article furnished, few were 
consumed on the occasion. Indeed many brought them as 
their present to the pastor's wife ! Ah ! well do I remember 
how long those unsavory lumps of dough and grease lay on 
the table in the dull days that followed the jolly party. We 
had doughnuts for breakfast ; doughnuts haunted the dinner ; 
and doughnuts eked out the supper. It was doughnuts to 
take to school, and doughnuts when we came home hungry, 
and doughnuts when we wanted to eat before going to bed. 
What became of the woollen and linen goods I knew not, but 
a lively sense of the prevailing presence and power of dough- 
nuts remained many days after the party, and has not wholly 
disappeared in the lapse of half a century. 

We took an account of stock the morning after the visit, 
and estimating the goods at the givers' valuation, the whole 
thing might be reckoned as worth a hundred dollars. Half 
that sum in money could have been used by the minister so 
as to be of more service than all the produce of the visit, 
including doughnuts. It was, of course, the prevalence of 
this last named commodity, over and above the rest, that 
gave the name, Doughnation Visit. By and by, for short, it 
was written Z><9nation. Hence we view the gradual improve- 
ment in spelling according to Prof. March, LL. D., of La Fay- 
ette College. Doughnation is now Donation, as walhknuta is 
walnut. The world moves. 

The season of the year is at hand when people meditate 
giving visits to the pastor. These may not be as common 
as they were fifty years ago, but they are far from being out 
of fashion. They had in old times, and they have now, this 
one thing specially to commend them — they bring the people 
together socially and make them personally acquainted. 
Breaking bread together is a great bond of union, and city 



A DOUGHNATION PARTY. ioi 

congregations have done a wholesome thing in providing 
church parlors where all the people may meet on common 
ground. It is not the eating and drinking that makes the 
party useful, though that is something, and not to be omitted. 
It is the meeting face to face and hand to hand of one family 
in Christ, members one of another because of Him. Such 
reunions were more common in the primitive church than 
they are now, and we may well go back to those days for the 
model of a working church. There was a Christian socialism 
then prevalent that fused all the members into one body. 
We have lost the spirit of those times, and have suffered by 
the loss. In many congregations there are strangers who 
are likely to remain strangers, for they never speak nor are 
spoken to in the intercourse of years. Whose fault it is, it 
may not be easy to say. But it is a fault that ought to be 
corrected, and church sociables are in the line of reform. 

I am not disposed to make light of giving-visits, even if 
their purpose is to aid the pastor. It is easier for people in 
many parts of the country to give anything they raise than 
money. It is hard to raise money. When they have paid 
the promised salary, it is a pleasing duty to increase the min- 
ister's income by bringing to his house of the fruits of their 
labor. There is beauty in it. It is a heart offering. And 
its effect, beyond the value of the gifts, is to show the kindly 
feelings of the people, and so to cement their union to the 
pastor and his household. 

But there is no need of giving a man two or three bushels 
of doughnuts at once. And this is also to say that the lack 
of judgment in these promiscuous gifts is fearfully amusing. 
Things utterly useless in the household, and that cannot be 
sold or exchanged, are often poured in, until there is no room 
to receive them. 

In a sweet Swiss village w T here I was sojourning, a wed- 
ding was coming off. I found it was customary for the near 
friends of the bride to make out a list of things which were 
likely to be the most acceptable as gifts, and each friend 
intending to give anything put his or her name down for 
some one of these things. Sometimes several persons united 



102 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

in the purchase of an article more costly than one alone would 
give. Thus all were sure that their gifts would fit in, and be 
useful as well as ornamental, helpful and pleasing. 



HABITS, ESPECIALLY BAD HABITS. 

14 Habits are soon assumed, but when we strive 
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive." 

— Cowpcr. 

Rev. Dr. Adams, who has recently assumed the Presidency 
of the New York Union Theological Seminary, is in the habit 
— and this is a good habit : all his habits are good so far as 
I know : he is certainly a model and the young ministers will 
not fail if they become like him — Dr. Adams is in the habit 
of having one of the Senior class at breakfast with him each 
morning. Afterwards they retire to the Doctor's study, and 
from that they go to the church next door; the youthful 
candidate takes the pulpit and the teacher the pew, and the 
young man preaches a sermon. Dr. Adams hears and notes 
the points important to be criticised, matter and manner, 
voice, tones, gestures, attitudes and faces ; sins of omission 
and commission ; and then and there, alone and freely, points 
them out, requires him to try again, to correct the fault on 
the spot, to get out of the bad habit he is getting into, and if 
one lesson fails, he must come again and never give over, 
until the practice is broken up utterly, and a better one 
formed in its place. 

This is a capital plan, requiring great labor and self-denial 
on the part of the accomplished President ; and a service 
which not many teachers would render, day after day, to a 
single pupil. For one such lesson a student ought to be 
grateful to the end of his days. How few have sense enough 
to know the value of such individual instruction ! 

Because lessons in the family, the school, the college and 
the seminary are for the most part given to the children and 



HABITS, ESPECIALLY BAD HABITS. 103 

youth in a group or class, the individual peculiarities of each 
one are apt to escape that attention which is necessary to 
their correction if they are evil. And this is true not of young 
ministers only, or young men only, or young women only, 
but of all the children and youth growing up, and of millions 
who have grown up with habits now utterly beyond all hope 
of improvement. 

It is a question worth a moment's thought, " Is any bad 
habit corrected after a person is twenty years old ?" 

If we answer the question in the negative, — and I am 
strongly inclined to take that side — the duty of parents and 
teachers is invested at once with tremendous responsibility, 
and this is the object of the letter you are reading. It may 
also be a warning and so an aid to the young, who need all 
the help they can have to become better and wiser. 

You meet a man after a separation of a score of years. 
The same habits mark him now that were his before. The 
child is so truly the father of the man, that the man of sixty 
has the ways that made him notable when a boy. He carries 
his head just as he did, is stooping or straight, quick or slow, 
talks through his nose or not, pronounces words wrong just 
as he did when a young man, and repeats himself all the days 
of his life. 

I know some of the most polished gentlemen, of the high- 
est culture, who invariably say Africar for Africa, Asiar for 
Asia, Jamaicar for Jamaica, and in fact they distinctly add 
the letter r to words ending in a, especially to proper names. 
They are unconscious of it, would not know it if it were 
pointed out to them as their habit, and would probably be 
hurt if it were mentioned to them. 

And this suggests the two reasons why bad habits are 
rarely if ever changed by men or women of ripe years. 1. 
After the habit has become confirmed the person loses all 
consciousness of it, just as the perfection of health is to 
be unconscious of having a stomach. 2. One's self-esteem 
is wounded by criticism, and a habit is cherished all the more 
fondly because assailed. It has been said — it is very nearly 
true — that no mortal is willing to be criticized, found fault 



104 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

with, and this makes criticism an ungracious and ungrateful 
task. I have ventured in the course of my life, to make the 
attempt to do unto others as I would have others do unto me, 
and to point out, in a kind and inoffensive way, the glaring 
fault of a friend : perhaps a public speaker, or a writer. In 
no one instance did any good come of it. A preacher has a 
habit of wrinkling his forehead while he speaks, or of pitching 
his voice immoderately high, or of mouthing his words, or 
shrugging his shoulders, of speaking too low or too loud, too 
fast or too slow ; whatever it is, after he has fairly settled to 
his work in the ministry he goes on, more and more so, the 
bad habit growing as his strength increases, moderating 
somewhat as old age weakens him, and he dies, the same 
habit clinging to him till the end. He was hurt whenever 
any one alluded to his habit : he said he could not help it, or 
he did not believe it, or it was his way, and if the people did 
not like it they could let it alone, and so repulsing friendly 
criticism, and hugging his fault, as a parent loves the deformed 
child the most, he sticks to his own, and goes from worse to 
worst. 

Peculiarities are not necessarily faults. Something dis- 
tinctive belongs to every earnest man. But faults of man- 
ner are no more to be cherished for the sake of distinction 
than lameness is to be preferred to sound limbs. 

The children that play at the fireside and sit at the table 
with you, are even now growing into habits that will never be 
broken up. You may treat it lightly and let them become 
fixed in their ways of doing or not doing things, of leaving 
the door open when they ought to shut it, of dropping their 
work or playthings when they ought to put them away into 
their proper places, of using improper words, of being selfish 
and proud and vain ; peevish, fretful, censorious ; neglecting 
duties that should be done at once; of disobeying when 
spoken to once ; of speaking when they ought to be silent ; 
little habits — so little that their mention seems idle ; but let 
these habits, any or all of them, be uncorrected when children 
are under age, and they will never be changed. Put a grown- 
up man into a mortar and bray him with a pestle, yet will 



THE EVIL EYE, 105 

not his bad habits depart from him. The way the child walks 
in he walks when he is old. 

And all this has not so much to do with those habits which 
may or may not be vices, according to the extent in which 
they are indulged, — for it is not always that an eccentricity is a 
vice — but it refers to those little foxes that spoil the vines ; 
faults too small to be named, that make up character and a 
large part of the life that now is. Bear with them in your 
friend ; they are spots on the sun ; remembering that he sees 
greater faults in you, perhaps ! 

And as Cowper furnished me a motto to begin with, let us 
find a fitting couplet for the close in Dryden : 

" All habits gather by unseen degrees, 
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." 



THE EVIL EYE. 



A beautiful, life-like portrait of an old friend has awakened 
the memory of a fact that may point a moral. I refer to the 
smooth well-rounded face of the late Milton Badger, D.D., 
that adorns the last number of the Congregational Quarterly. 

When I came to this city, in the year 1840, Dr. Badger and 
Dr. Charles Hall were secretaries of the American Home 
Missionary Society. Their office was very near to mine, and 
I was soon pleasantly acquainted with them. We were in 
the daily habit of taking dinner together at a restaurant on 
the corner of Beekman and Nassau street, in the building 
which is now the Park Hotel. 

In the summer of that year, conversing with a friend 
and speaking of pleasant persons with whom I had become 
associated since coming to the city, I mentioned Dr. Badger 
as one of them. My friend remarked: 

" What a pity it is that he is afflicted with such turns!" 

" I was not aware that he was suffering in any way. To 
what do you allude?" 



lo6 JRENMUS LETTERS. 

"Perhaps I ought not to have spoken of it," my friend 
replied ; " but lest you should imagine it to be something 
worse than it really is, I may as well tell you ; he has occa- 
sional turns of derangement, and is obliged to leave his 
work and retire for a time to an asylum. They do not last 
long, but they have been coming on more and more frequently 
for some years." 

" This is very sad : I would not have suspected it from any- 
thing I have seen ; but now that you speak of it, I perceive a 
sadness, a reticence, and almost a melancholy in his expres- 
sion, that may well haunt a mind that is disordered." 

" Yes ; it takes the form of melancholy without cause, and 
is temporarily relieved by medical treatment, only to return 
more painfully than before." 

From this time onward I began to pay more particular 
attention to the looks, the acting, manner and words of my 
poor unfortunate friend Badger. I observed that he and his 
colleague always came to dinner together, which indicated the 
importance of his being kept closely watched. He sometimes 
failed to notice a remark made by another of the company at 
the table, which led me to think his mind was wandering. 
He would now and then cast a glance so full of pity and sor- 
row, I was sure that he was himself suffering. His knife and 
fork began to appear dangerous weapons in his hands, and if 
he rested a moment in the midst of dinner, he seemed to me 
meditating an attack upon some other meat than that on his 
plate. The signs of latent madness cropped out continually, 
and the danger of being with him appeared to increase, so 
that I determined to have a consultation with Dr. Hall, in 
reference to some decided course to be pursued with him. 

Seeking an opportunity I said to him, when we were by 
ourselves : u It is very sad this trouble of Dr. Badger's; don't 
you think something ought to be done about it ?" 

" 1 do not understand you," said Dr Hall. 

" I beg pardon if I have touched upon anything that is 
secret, but 1 supposed it was generally known, and it was in 
the purest sympathy that 1 referred to it." 



THE EVIL EYE. ioj 

Dr. Hall replied, " I do not know what you are speaking 
of, and you will have to explain yourself." 

I was still under the impression that he was trying to divert 
me from my suspicions, and I said frankly, " I am told that 
he is subject to fits of derangement, and is often confined for 
treatment, and then returns to his duties." 

Dr. Hall exploded with laughter, to my astonishment and 
relief: and, calling to Dr. Badger, whose room adjoined his 
own, he said, " Come in here, and tell us what you have been 
doing." He then repeated to his associate the story I had 
told him, and they made themselves as merry over it as was 
becoming two divines. 

When the explanation was sought, it was found that my 
informant had confounded Dr. Badger with another person, 
of whom all the facts were correctly stated, but they were 
applied to the wrong man ! For a long time afterward the 
incident was the occasion of pleasantry between us, and 
besides the amusement it afforded, is the lesson it teaches to 
be very cautious of awakening unjust suspicions in regard to 
others. 

If I had been called on to testify in a court of justice, as to 
the sanity of Dr. Badger, before I went to his colleague with 
my suspicions, I should have been compelled to speak of the 
"look out of his eye," the "incoherent observation," the 
"absent-mindedness," the "sudden movement," the appa- 
rent "melancholy" which had marked the deportment of 
one of the most even, placid, well-balanced, judicious and 
undisturbed men in the world. But the evil eye of suspicion, 
with which I had regarded him, had discovered signs of 
incipient insanity, and had perverted the suavity of a Chris- 
tian gentleman into the lurking seeds of mental disease. 

To injure the usefulness of a good man, to poison the hap- 
piness of a noble woman, it is necessary only to give wings 
to words of suspicion in regard to character, and the evil 
deed is done. A faithful pastor has won his way to a well- 
earned reputation, and a report gets abroad that " he drinks :" 
that is, " he is intemperate •" for with many people "to drink 



108 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

at all is to be intemperate," and the story is confirmed by 
every instance of special success in the pulpit, and by every 
failure that he makes. It is quite as well to kill a dog at 
once as to give it out that he is mad, for then he is sure to be 
hunted to the death. And when once the suspicion is 
awakened that a man or a woman is not altogether right, 
every act, however innocent, is construed into evidence of 
wrong. Words that are as gentle and good as if they fell 
from the lips of angels, are perverted by prejudice into wit- 
nesses of evil, and out of their own mouths the innocent are 
condemned. To speak ill of a neighbor is in almost every 
case an injury to society, and to speak evil unjustly is to bear 
false witness, which is one of the most grievous sins. 

I have heard you say that it is a namby-pamby milk-and- 
water sort of virtue that requires us to speak only what is 
good of people, and that faults are as fair a subject of remark 
as the merits of others. But I do not agree with you in that. 
The law of love is the best rule of life, and to speak ill of 
others is to be allowed only when love requires it. Censure 
is as just at some times as praise at others. Only let it be 
in love. But if the truth is not to be spoken always, if 
silence is better than speech when speaking the truth would 
do evil and no good, how wicked and how dangerous it is to 
utter a word of untruth, even a breath of suspicion, a trifling 
hint or insinuation that may soil the fair face of a spotless 
name, and dim the lustre of a virtuous character. The 
tongue is a little member, but it is a mighty power. And 
words once spoken can never, never, never be unsaid. 



MODEL MINISTER, PROFESSOR, AND MAN. 109 



THE MODEL MINISTER, PASTOR, PROFESSOR, 

AND MAN. 

REMARKS AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE TABLET IN 
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY CHAPEL, TO THE 
MEMORY OF REV. SAMUEL MILLER, D.D. 

As I speak of Dr. Samuel Miller, he rises on my memory 
as when I saw him for the first time. It was in the autumn 
of 1832: in the 63d year of his life, in the morning of that 
old age which put on immortality at 81. Coming to the 
Seminary with a letter of introduction to him, I called and 
was received in his library, in the midst of which he was 
standing, clad in a white flannel study gown, and with a 
black silk cap on his head. The walls, from floor to ceiling, 
lined with books ; the gently burning wood-fire; the imple- 
ments of learned toil ; a form of manly grace and beauty ; 
his paternal smile and pressure of my hand ; all these come 
back to me fresh and warm, though nearly half a century 
lies between that scene and this, as we meet to cut his name 
in marble and pay this honor to his memory. 

Having given me a kindly welcome and learned my 
intended course of study, he said : " You will often want 
books that others have drawn from the library ; you see 
mine; while you are in the Seminary, consider them yours ; 
take as many as you wish ; come whenever you please and 
help yourself." He followed this remarkable offer by taking 
down some works, the names of which I remember distinctly, 
and I carried them off " rejoicing as one who findeth great 
spoil." 

Whoever speaks of Dr. Miller without personal knowledge 
of him, portrays a man of great dignity, formality, with that 
reserve which weak men sometimes suppose to be essential 
to the manners of a gentleman. He was free from those 
weaknesses. Without affectation, he was simply a refined 
Christian, with the nicest sense of the proprieties ; the most 



no IREN&US letters. 

delicate consideration for others, deep personal humility, 
and unbounded benevolence. When these virtues are com- 
bined with large learning, extensive intercourse with culti- 
vated men, and a fine person, you have as nearly a perfect 
model as God often makes. 

The first time that I read an essay before the class Dr. 
Miller was in the chair. The juvenile performance was sub- 
mitted to the tender mercies of the students, each of whom 
was at liberty to make his comments. These were free, and 
some of them very caustic. My epidermis was then much 
more tender than it is now. Some kindly criticisms fell 
from the lips of my distinguished friend, the Rev. Dr. D. X. 
Junkin. The Church and the world have heard of other 
men who took me in hand that morning. When they had 
flayed me alive, cut me up entirely, it remained for Dr. Miller 
to hold an inquest on the remains. With exceeding gentle- 
ness he said, " Will you be so kind as to remain after the 
class retires ?" I remained, in sure and certain fear that the 
excoriation was to be so severe that his tenderness would 
not suffer him to perform the operation in public. We were 
alone, and he broke the silence by saying, in his blandest 
tones, " Will you do me the favor to come and take tea with 
me to-morrow ; I wish you to become acquainted with my 
family." I recovered and went. 

While in the lecture room, I am reminded of one of the 
happiest illustrations of Dr. Millers manners, his genial 
humor, and regard for the feelings of those whom he would 
correct. We took our seats in the old oratory often in 
chairs of our own, provided with a leaf on which we could 
write our notes. One of the class had so placed his chair 
that he sat with his back to Dr. Miller; the impropriety of 
the position deserved rebuke, but he did not wish to mortify 
the young man ; and as he was about to commence his lecture 
Dr. Miller said: 

44 Mr. , I prefer in this lecture to reason a priori, rather 

than a posteriori '." Amid the roars of the class, he wheeled 
right about face. 

Dr. Miller's standard of clerical manners was admirably 



MODEL MINISTER, PROFESSOR, AND MAN. HI 

expressed in one of those memorable Sabbath afternoon 
conferences, when that subject was up for discussion. He 
said to us : " I would have the minister, in his manner of 
life, his dress, his equipage, so conform to the reasonable 
expectations of society, as to avoid remark either on the 
ground of parsimony or of extravagance. Thus, if he rides, 
I would not wish the people to be able to say, ' What a fine 
horse the parson has ! ' Nor on the other hand, 'What a rat 
of a thing our minister rides ! ' " 

Born in the State of Delaware, his father a rural pastor, 
he had the best home that children have who are to be 
trained for usefulness and heaven. His collegiate course 
was completed with honor in Philadelphia. His pastoral 
life was begun and ended in the city of New York. In the 
early years of his ministry, with men of might and renown 
around him, the youthful soldier of the cross bore himself 
so bravely as to command respectful admiration and honor. 
Before the time when Doctorates were then wont to fall on 
the reverend head, he met his fate. It does not take so 
much to make a doctor in our day as it did in his, — the 
boys become Doctors of Divinity now almost as soon as they 
leave off their aprons, — but he was decorated when so young, 
that we may easily appreciate an incident which occurred on 
a journey he made in New England just after he experienced 
a change from simple Mr. to a more excellent degree. His 
travelling friend introduced him to a plain-spoken divine as 
" Dr. Miller of New York," and the man taking him at once 
to be a physician, asked him about the yellow fever; when 
his friend informed him that this was a Doctor of Divinity; 
upon which he lifted up his hands and exclaimed, with 
emphasis peculiar to the expression, You don't ! 

His pulpit talents, both as a writer and speaker, were of a 
high order ; graceful, able and eloquent, bringing only beaten 
oil into the sanctuary, preaching without notes, with earnest- 
ness, fluency and force, he was heard with profit, and his 
ministry was eminently useful and successful. 

His life of 20 years in New York must have been won- 
derfully distinguished, far beyond that of men of his years. 



112 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

He was 24 years old when he was ordained pastor of the 
First Presbyterian church; he was 44 when translated to 
the Seminary in Princeton, yet, in this first score of his min- 
isterial years, he became the acknowledged champion of 
Presbyterian Church order ; a voluminous author, some of 
whose books were republished in England, extorting from one 
of its reviews the reluctant admission that " Mr. Miller has 
deserved well of both worlds." He was one of the fathers 
of Theological Seminary education in the United States. 
He was one of the consulting and devising minds that gave 
form to the Andover Seminary. He and Dr. Ashbel Green 
" may be considered the founders of Princeton Theological 
Seminary." And in the midst of labors, multi/arious and 
multitudinous, he was called to the Presidency of Dickinson 
College, Pa., the Presidency of the University of North Car- 
olina, and to the Presidency of Hamilton College, N. Y. 

He came to the Seminary, the child of his affections, in 
the second year of its life, and in the early prime of his own. 
With what devotion, diligence, and ability; with what learn- 
ing, wisdom, and success, he served the Church and its great 
Head ! His broad, ripe, liberal culture forbade him to be a 
High Churchman, for he held that to be the tap root of 
Popery; but he was an intelligent Presbyterian divine, a 
beautiful type of the best school of ecclesiastical science, a 
full-orbed example of the thoroughly furnished minister of 
the Word. 

Hundreds who sat at his feet have gone out into the rich 
harvest fields to do- work for the Master. Some of them are 
among the great men of the ages ; others, unknown to fame, 
have lived and died ; no white shaft rises from the green sod 
that covers their precious dust ; no tablet tells the genera- 
tions that such men ever lived, but He whose hand upholds 
the s'pheres has set them with the stars. 

Thus, Dr. Miller trained men to be true and faithful, to be 
proud of their lineage, loyal to their Church, and gallant 
soldiers of the cross. 

The prophets, where are they ? We write their names on 
tablets, their memories are holy in our hearts ; their instruc- 



THE BABES IN THE WOODS, 1 13 

tions we follow with reverence ; grant God that when we 
too have finished our course with joy, we may sit down with 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, with Samuel Miller and the 
Alexanders and Breckinridge and Hodge, the last ascended, 
and join with them in the humble cry, " Not unto us, not 
unto us." 



THE BABES IN THE WOODS. 

Whene'er I take my walks abroad, how many babes I see, 
because I leave the dusty road, and seek a shady lea. That 
lea in New York is the Central Park ; the only meadow 
which dwellers in the city made with hands can enjoy. It is 
a great luxury to have it. Even we who cannot afford the 
luxury of equipage, may take a cane for company, and stroll 
miles and miles in the smooth walks, by the side of charm- 
ing lakes enlivened with white and also black swans ; under 
the shadows of great trees ; now and then resting our weary 
feet by sitting on the rude benches. 

It is a habit of mine, when it is possible, to fly from the 
shop to the Park for a nip of fresh air and a bit of exercise. 
In the hot weather of the present October this retreat has 
been specially agreeable. Indeed we have not known such 
an October since the Dutch made this city New Amsterdam. 
The Park is the useful refuge for nurses and babies. Thou- 
sands of mothers are only too glad to have their children 
taken from home into the open air or anywhere, and the 
nurses are quite as well pleased to go as mothers are to have 
them. But of these thousands of mothers, few, if any of 
them, know what becomes of their children when once out 
of sight. 

Yesterday I turned into the Park at the head of Sixth 
avenue. There are some charming little retreats not far 
from the gateway. Shady and cool, by the waterside, they 
invite the children to play, and the nurses to meet their 
friends. Another favorite resort is over on the East side 



114 I RE N^ US LETTERS. 

near the wild beasts. Here the little people gather numer- 
ously, and are easily amused. The great thing is to get 
where the children can take care of themselves, so that the 
young-lady-nurse may not be disturbed with duties while 
she enjoys the pleasure of an interview with her " cousin/' 
who has happened to be in the Park at the same hour. 

A little way into the Park, and I encountered an Irish 
nurse administering discipline to a babe a couple of years 
old. The child was crying, the nurse was scolding and shak- 
ing her. I stopped in front of the group : 

" There, now," said the nurse to the child, "the man is 
going to carry you off ; you naughty girl, you." 

"No," said I, "that's no such thing; you ought to be 
carried off yourself and kept off, for frightening the child ; 
you are sent out here to amuse the child, and you are scaring 
the life out of it with your lies. I wish I had the right to 
punish you on the spot." 

By the time I had made this long speech the babe was 
quieted, and the nurse, finding her tongue, began her retort, 
which, I have no doubt, was sharp enough, but I did not 
wait to hear it. 

At the other end of the lake Bridget and her " cousin" 
were so closely engaged in conversation that she did not 
observe the babe wandering off on the green grass ; it was 
pleasant for the child and quite safe, unless the little crea- 
ture should fall into the water. She would not have drowned, 
for it was an easy matter to pick a baby out of the quiet 
lake. Not one has ever yet been drowned under such cir- 
cumstances. As the children joined each other on the grass, 
hugged and played and tumbled about in their childish glee, 
it was easy to see how rapidly infectious diseases are spread. 
Mrs. Jones' child is out of sorts, peevish and languid. 
Bridget must take it to the Park. The mother does not 
know that a few days before it was playing on the grass with 
a number of children, one of whom was in just the condition 
of her pet to-day ; it was ready to break out with the scarlet 
fever, or diphtheria, or some other complaint. Half a dozen 
children from a§ many different parts of the city are thus 



THE BABES IN THE WOODS. 115 

exposed. To-day Mrs. Jones sends her child into the Park ; 
it is in the state to give the same disease to all the babes she 
plays with ; to-morrow she is down sick, everybody wonder- 
ing where she could have caught that dreadful complaint. 

Wandering along my winding way, and passing a bench 
of Bridgets, beaux and babies, one of the latter fell head first 
from its cradle and struck upon the solid concrete walk. It 
made no scream, and I hoped it was not hurt. But when I had 
passed a few steps on, the cry came, piercing my ear and heart. 
The stunned child had " come to," and was now shrieking in 
pain and fright. Doubtless it was soon hushed, and Bridget 
pursued her interrupted tete-a-tete with her " cousin." The 
fond mother at home will never know of the accident that 
happened to her darling child while the unfaithful nurse was 
flirting with a man ; but in the course of a year or two the 
child will become more and more restless, fitful, uncontroll- 
able ; then it will be lethargic ; convulsions will seize and 
distort it ; parents will weep and pray, and plead with doc- 
tors to do something for it ; they will shake their heads and 
fear there is water on the brain, and if so, there is great 
reason to fear; "did the child ever fall on its head?" no, 
never; and then comes one more convulsive struggle; its 
little hands are clutched ; its limbs are drawn into fierce con- 
tortions ; and the doctor says it does not suffer pain ; it is 
quite unconscious ; these awful throes are involuntary ; then 
it opens its eyes in the light of a mother's love, and its soul 
goes out to Him who gave it. 

That is the result of just such an accident as happened 
when I passed the unwatched cradle in the Park. Hundreds 
of such cradles and nurses are in the Park to-day. Fond 
mothers think they are doing everything for their babes 
when they hire one woman for each child, to give her whole 
time to it. But they are trying to get for their children 
what money cannot procure. 

You live in the country, and imagine that the hints in this 
letter are intended for the mothers of New York, whose 
babies and nurses enjoy the Central Park. But I am writing 
to them and to you. The progress of social refinement, the 



Ii6 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

increase of wealth and culture, the division of labor, the 
demands of society, women's work in the Church, take up 
so much time that mothers turn off the care of their babes 
upon hired nurses. Mrs. Smith sends for me to come and 
talk with her about founding an asylum for deserted and 
orphan children. Her own son, twelve years old, was 
stretched on the rug, with dirty shoes, munching an apple, 
and acting more like a pig in the straw than the oldest son 
of a lady. She told him to get up, but he wouldn't, and he 
didn't. We talked as well as we could, and I thought her 
own children needed care quite as much as the Arabs of the 
street or the desert. And so it is everywhere. Home is the 
source of salvation for society. We want good homes. 
Mothers are the makers of the manners of their sons and 
daughters. But the mother who commits her tender babes 
to the unwatched care of a half-civilized pagan or papal 
nurse, and then imagines that she has done her duty, is a 
mother false to her nature, to herself, to her children, false 
to God and to society. If she has heart enough to ache, she 
will yet regret her neglect of maternal duties, when it is too 
late to retrieve the lamentable loss. 



MANNERS IN CHURCH. 

Thirty people, young men and maidens, " taken up" and 
brought before a magistrate, for misbehavior in church, pro- 
duced no small stir in a quiet Long Island village, the other 
day. If they had all been fined, or even imprisoned for a 
while, that they might give themselves to reflection and pen- 
itence, it would have served them right, and perhaps would 
have been a wholesome discipline. 

They had been laughing, talking, and disporting them- 
selves in a most unseemly manner, and it was well to bring 
such base fellows, of both sexes, to the only bar of which 
they are afraid. Indeed, it is strange that, in a civilized and 



MANNERS IN CHURCH. 1 17 

Christian country, there can be, in any community, a set of 
youth so destitute of decency as to go into a place of prayer 
to make fun ! Yet this is only an excess of ill -breeding or 
bad manners, and there is not a little of it in the most refined 
cities and church circles, different in degree, and in kind 
also, but liable to criticism and censure nevertheless. 

It is not the proper thing to come to church after the ser- 
vice has been opened. Where circumstances have made it 
impracticable to be early, the late comer may be justified on 
the ground that it is better to come late than not at all. 
But it is a fact that some people have a habit of coming late, 
and it is very plain, to those whom they disturb, that they 
might have been in time had they taken pains to be so. 
Invited to dinner, they would regard it very rude to keep 
the other guests waiting, or to make a disturbance, by com- 
ing five or ten minutes after the dinner is served. But it is 
almost an unheard-of event, probably it was never known, 
that a Christian congregation had the privilege of beginning 
its public devotions without being immediately afflicted by 
the arrival of those who come tearing up the aisle while 
others are trying to pray or praise. 

To speak of such offences against good manners as whis- 
pering in divine service, laughing or sleeping, ought to be 
quite unnecessary, for it is hard to believe that such vices 
prevail to any extent in Christian churches. Yet we do see 
it sometimes, and always with a feeling that those who 
indulge in it have no proper sense of the fact expressed in 
those words : " Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord of 
Hosts." 

On a beautiful Sabbath forenoon, I was in the middle seat 
of one of the largest Fifth avenue churches in this city. 
Before me, in another pew, sat a well-dressed man, who was 
also an Orthodox divine, whose garments were so thoroughly 
imbued with the odor of tobacco, that the fragrance filled 
the circumambient air as if the man were a hogshead of the 
weed. Probably to some near him the aroma was delicious, 
and they blessed him for bringing the scent with him, that 
they might enjoy it and the gospel together. But unto us 



Il8 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

whose olfactories have never been refined to the delicacy 
essential to appreciate the sweet savor of such a Sabbath 
sacrifice, the stench was abominable. Was it according to 
the law of Christ for this good man to come into the house 
to be an offence unto the ladies and all the weak brethren in 
his vicinity ? 

In this connection, I am sorely tempted to say that there 
are other odors equally disagreeable to some which the 
brethren do not bring to church ; but it is not safe to say a 
word against perfumes, lest those who come laden with 
them should be more offended than are we who endure 
them. It is indeed written in the Psalms, " All thy gar- 
ments smell ot myrrh ;" but however much some may fancy 
myrrh, it is not possible to build an argument upon one poet- 
ical passage like that, to prove the propriety of poisoning 
the atmosphere of the sanctuary with musk, patchouli and 
mille fleurs. 

The right and wrong of this turn upon the rule of doing 
as we would have others do to us. Intensely unpleasant to 
many people is the smell of tobacco. Many perfumes, deli- 
cious to some, are quite as disagreeable to others. The 
church is a place where we ought to be allowed to meet 
without being compelled to inhale odors which are purely 
artificial, and have no necessary relations to the comfort and 
convenience of any. 

On this principle of doing as we would be done by, and 
remembering that it is our duty to deny ourselves for the 
sake of others, we ought to forego the privilege of public 
worship when we are liable to carry in our garments or our 
breath the germ of disease. It is often a dreadful truth 
that scarlet fever and other infectious and contagious diseases 
are spread by the presence in church of those who come 
from houses where these pestilential sicknesses are, or have 
been recently. Kind, good women will go to a friend's home 
and minister with angelic faithfulness by a sick bed, and 
from that house go to the sanctuary with the diseases all 
over and through their raiment. Persons suffering with 
severe colds and coughs make themselves an affliction to 



MANNERS IN CHURCH. ii^ 

others, preventing all in their vicinity from deriving profit 
or enjoyment from the services, when it is their Christian duty 
to stay at home. They need the medical doctor. Let us be 
very gentle in our treatment of mothers who come to church 
with babes in their arms, for well do we know they would 
not bring them could they leave them. Yet even they will 
leave the house, when their infants insist on being heard, to 
the disturbance of public worship. 

While we were singing the doxology, I counted sixteen 
Presbyterians putting on their overcoats. It would have 
been better had I been worshipping instead of counting, but 
it was almost involuntary, and did not take me more than 
ten seconds; while those stout worshippers wrestled with 
their garments, and, wriggling into them, finally stood erect 
in time to come out with the words, " By all in heaven." 
Had they reverently paused till the benediction had been 
given, they might have arrayed themselves comfortably and 
reached home in reasonable time. 

Coming down the broad aisle, the fragrant divine asked 
me, " How did you like the sermon ?" I told him in the 
fewest words. A lady friend said, " How did you like the 
sermon ?" I replied in words more, because a lady was to 
be answered. Approaching the door, a gentleman greeted 
me cordially, and said, "What did you think of that ser- 
mon ?" I told him as I had told the others, for it was an 
excellent discourse. In the vestibule one of the elders took 
me by the hand and, with true seriousness, asked, " Didn't 
you like the sermon ; we have just such every Sunday." No 
one of these Christian worshippers appeared to have any 
other thought of the morning service but the sermon, and 
how other people "liked it." Let us not undervalue the 
sermon. But also let us not make it the test of one's profit 
and comfort in the worship of God. And I must say I would 
rather not be required to pass an opinion upon the preach- 
ing, while yet at the gate of heaven. 

How it was in days of old, we need not now discuss. It 
was never right to make preaching the primary business of 
church service. Prayer and praise are the more important 



120 . 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

parts. And the feeling of every hearer should be that of 
reverence, as in the presence of the Infinite and the Holy 
One. If a sense of the divine excellency fall upon us in 
God's house, it will make us suitably afraid. The place will 
be sacred. And it will be good for us to be there. 



LONG-WINDED SPEAKERS. 

His Royal Highness the Duke of Blank was presiding at a 
public meeting, when and where the Rev. Rowland Hill was 
to be one of the speakers. One who preceded him had the 
bad taste, bad manners and great folly to talk an hour and 
more, to the weariness of the audience, the disgust of the 
chairman, and the injury of the cause for the promotion of 
which the meeting had been called. The Duke whispered to 
Mr. Hill, who sat near him, " Really, Mr. Hill, I do not think 
I can sit to hear such another speech as this : I wish you 
would give one of your good-natured hints about it." When 
the man on his legs had at last exhausted himself, as well as 
his hearers, and had subsided, Mr. Hill arose and said : 

" May it please your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen, 
I am not going to make a long speech, or a moving speech. 
The first is a rudeness, and the second is not required to-day : 
after the very ?noving one you have just heard, so moving 
that several of the company have been moved by it out of 
the room ; nay, I even fear such another would so move his 
Royal Highness himself that he would be unable to continue 
in the chair, and would, to the great regret of the meeting, 
be obliged to move off." 

This put an end to the long speeches of that day, but it did 
not put an end to the evil. For it is an evil that has held its 
own in spite of all remedies, and is quite as afflictive and 
fatal now as ever. 

Even this eccentric yet very sensible man, as he became 
old, would spin out his discourses to an unreasonable length, 



LONG-WINDED SPEAKERS. 12 1 

to the injury of their effect, and consequently to the detri- 
ment of Christ's cause. He continued to preach long after 
he was fourscore, and, though feeble when he began, he 
warmed up with his work, preached the people into a good 
frame, and then preached them out of it again. He would 
say, after finding that he had been preaching more than an 
hour, " Well, I am sure I had not an idea of it : it was too 
long for me and too long for the people : but when I am 
once set a-going I cannot stop. I must be shorter." 

In one of his letters, Mr. Hill speaks of the sufferings of 
those who are obliged to endure long speeches, " without any 
remedy or redress, upon the high fidgets, above half the time 
gaping and watching the clock." " In most of the public 
meetings, I have been tired down before they are half over, 
and have been obliged to sheer off with the remains of my 
patience, and leave the finishing to others. 

" In the way in which too many of these public meetings are 
conducted, I have my fears that many a good cause is injured 
by the means adopted for their support. Though some may 
be gratified by what may be said to the point, yet, oh, the 
dulness, the circumlocutionness, the conceit, the tautology of 
others. In short, few know how to be pithy, short and sweet. 
And as I find it very difficult to be pithy and sweet, my 
refuge at all times is to be short." 

My sympathies are with Mr. Hill and the other man who 
said, " If I never did a great thing in my life, I am sure I 
never did a long thing." While the Scotch minister was of 
a very different disposition who was asked if he was not very 
much exhausted after preaching three hours ; he said, " O 
no ; but it would have done you good to see how worried 
the people were." 

Dr. Emmons, a celebrated New England divine, was wont 
to say to young ministers : " Be short in all religious exer- 
cises. Better leave the people longing than loathing. No 
conversions after the first half hour." 

The last remark is terrible, and perhaps not literally true, 
but there is a thought in it to be pondered by preachers and 
all public speakers. To carry conviction home to the heart, 



122 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

to persuade men to will and do that to which they are 
now averse, this is the work which the speaker sets before 
him, and he makes a grand blunder if he imagines that he is 
becoming more and more effective as they become weary and 
wish that he would be done. Of this sort of preachers was 
he who, when he had split his subject into so many heads as 
to split the heads of his hearers, and harried them under 
each division beyond all reason, at last exclaimed, 

" And what shall I say more !" 

" Say, amen," said a child who was one of the few awake. 

When we censure these men of lungs, who love to be on 
their legs when their hearers wish them to sit down, we are 
uniformly met with the reply that, " in old times," it was com- 
mon to preach one, two and even three hours : and the fault 
is in the people, and not in the speaker, if these long services 
are not acceptable now. But a sensible man will take things 
as they are, and make them better if he can. Things are 
not now as they once were. And if the age has become 
impatient of long speeches and heavy essays, and learned 
books, let us give the age what it will hear and read, and do 
it all the good we can. 

The man who overdoes the matter in public address, usu- 
ally is betrayed into the mistake by forgetfulness of the flight 
of time, or by a secret self-conceit of his own that he is enter- 
taining and instructing the audience. Some men actually 
mistake for applause the good-natured efforts of the people 
to remind them that they have had enough. 

It is impossible to lay down a rule on the subject, by which 
the length of a speech or sermon is to be measured. We 
ought to have some plan by which, at public meetings, a 
speaker may be brought to his bearings when he has been up 
to his allotted time. And in these days of electrical tele- 
graphs, what hinders the construction of an apparatus, easily 
adjusted to every platform, by which a dull speaker may be 
shaken up a little, and the long-winded one reminded that 
his time is out, and then if he will not sit down, he shall be 
knocked over gently. Such a contrivance would greatly 
enliven public meetings, and tend to increase their useful* 



HENRY AND HILDEBRAND. 1 23 

ness. Should any inventive genius put this hint into prac- 
tical operation, no claim of priority will ever disturb his 
patent ; I throw it out for the use of the public. 

Be short. You may not be able to make a great speech. 
But you can be short. Some of the most effective speeches 
ever made were short. Generals on the eve of battle are 
brief. He who spake as never man spake, said few words at 
a time. The time is short. Life is short. 



HENRY AND HILDEBRAND. 

This tenth day of January is a memorable anniversary. 
The Jesuits celebrate it. It revives the memory of the 
proudest day in the history of the Church of Rome, and the 
date of the beginning of its fall. 

Eight hundred years ago, Henry IV., Emperor of Ger- 
many, barefooted and bareheaded, with a rope around his 
neck, stood at the gate of Canossa Castle, begging for par- 
don, while Gregory VII., the haughty Hildebrand, revelled 
in luxury with the Countess Matilda within. By some 
writers she is spoken of as his paramour. There are Prot- 
estant historians who believe the relations of the Pope and 
the Countess were pure. They were certainly not discreet. 

This Pope was a great reformer, and the dissoluteness of 
his clergy was the chief object at which he directed his 
blows. He forbade them to marry also, thus vindicating the 
now admitted supremacy of Popery in the art of doing one 
thing and pretending to do another. The priests were dis- 
solute in their morals, and the Pope prohibited the mar- 
riage of those who would lead lives of purity in holy wed- 
lock according to the law of God. 

The Jesuits throughout the world observe this day as the 
anniversary — the 800th — of the degradation of the Emperor 
of Germany at the feet of the Pope of Rome. The story is 
the most romantic in the annals of Popery, and the day is 



124 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

a pivot in the history of that great anti-Christian power. 
That was the day w T hen the power of the Pope of Rome was 
at its zenith. All earthly kings and kingdoms were then at 
his disposal. From that day began his fall, which has been 
steadily going lower and lower, until to-day, Jan. 10, 1877, 
there is not one crowned head in Europe who cares a six- 
pence for the Pope of Rome. And the successor of that 
mighty Hildebrand, who claimed to be and was at that time 
the disposer of all lands on earth, is not now the proprietor 
in fee of a foot of ground beneath the sun. 

Like Lucifer he has fallen, never to rise again. The 
sceptre has passed out of his hand, and instead of having 
kings standing as beggars at his gate, there is none so poor 
to do him reverence. And he begs pence from the chamber- 
maids of New York and the peasants of Ireland under the 
pretence of being a prisoner in the Vatican, dependent on 
the charity of his poor parishioners. 

History furnishes no such example of a retributive provi- 
dence. 

Henry IV. of Germany claimed the divine right of kings, 
as one ordained of God, and mocked the notion of the age 
that the Pope was supreme in States as well as in the 
Church. The Pope and he fell out, and the Pope beat him. 
For in that dark age, when a bishop might be unable to 
read or write, and there was far more superstition than 
religion in the Church, the people thought the Pope had 
two swords, the spiritual and the secular, and with the 
former he could cut off a bishop's head, and with the other 
a king's head, whenever he wanted exercise. 

Henry excommunicated Hildebrand, and Hildebrand ex- 
communicated Henry. The Pope absolved Henry's subjects 
from their allegiance, claiming this right as vested in the 
head of the Church. This proclamation fell like a pall of 
death on the fortunes of the King. His subjects turned 
away from him. His allies deserted him. The Suabian 
and Saxon princes assembled in solemn conclave, and deter- 
mined to elect a new king who would obey the Pope. Henry 
quailed and finally succumbed. The man went out of him. 



HENRY AND HILDEBRAND. 125 

He consented to humble himself before the Pope and ask 
forgiveness. In the coldest winter then known in the mem- 
ory of man, he set out before Christmas day, and, through 
incredible sufferings, he crossed the Alps in storms of snow 
and the freezing cold, with his wife and child. The Pope 
had taken up his residence in the Castle of Canossa, with 
the Countess Matilda, and there awaited the coming of the 
humbled monarch. Before the excommunicated sovereign 
went a melancholy procession of excommunicated bishops 
and nobles who shared his fortunes, and were now with 
him seeking absolution. They, too, were barefoot, for they 
were all beggars together. The haughty Pope put each one 
of them into a solitary cell, and finally sent them back with 
his ghostly pardon. But he reserved his chief terrors for 
the prostrate monarch. Admitted within the first gate, the 
king was made to stand in the second enclosure, barefoot 
and fasting, for three whole days and nights, in the bitter 
cold of winter, while the Pope and the woman revelled in 
their luxury within. At last the Pope yielded to the impor- 
tunities of the woman and admitted the degraded king into 
his presence, and finally patched up a peace with him. 

This was the bold assertion of the supremacy of the 
Church of Rome above the governments of the world. It is 
the doctrine of the Church to-day. It is taught in the writ- 
ings of the authorized teachers of that Church in the city of 
New York to-day. What was the effect of the scene we 
have now described ? Henry returned to Germany, rallied 
his people, who came back to their senses and allegiance, 
marched upon the Pope and put him into prison. An old 
enemy of his delivered him, and he was set up only to be 
cast down again ; and loaded with contempt and scorn, torn 
with disappointment and chagrin, he perished a miserable 
exile from power. 

From that day, Jan. 10, 1077 — the battle has been going on 
until the Pope found his Waterloo at Sedan. Down to that 
downfall of the last French Empire, he had managed to 
keep up the illusion of temporal sovereignty ; playing at the 
game of kings and pretending that he was one of the rulers 



126 IREN&US LETTERS. 

among the powers that be. But one after another of the 
kingdoms that were once governed by the permission of the 
Pope have outgrown the superstition of his right, and when 
the dogma of Infallibility was proclaimed, and the last friend 
of the Pope followed it up by a declaration of war against 
the successor of Henry IV., Hildebrand's old foe, then 
began the final struggle between the claims of the Pope on 
one hand and the rights of men on the other. It was Roman- 
ism represented by the Pope and Napoleon, and it was the 
Protestant principle incarnate in the stern old German King. 
How firm the tread of the monarch as he came to do the 
will of God ! How the legions of superstition, with the 
blessing of the Pope on their eagles, went down like grass 
before the scythe, as the mighty Northmen moved on and 
avenged the loth of January, 1077? 

The spirit and the doctrine and the purpose of the Church 
of Rome are to-day identical with those of eight hundred 
years ago. This is the boast of the Church. That is what 
the Jesuits celebrate to-day. In all their high places, in their 
secret recesses and vast assemblies, cathedrals and colleges, 
with incense, and song and organ peal, and procession, ban- 
ners and sacramental service, they commemorate on this day 
the anniversary of their enjoyment of the loftiest throne the 
world ever saw ; when the servant (as they pretend) of the 
meek and lowly Jesus stood on the neck of the mightiest 
Emperor, and looking abroad over all the earth, saw no 
monarch who could stay his hand or say, "Why doest 
thou so ?" 

The struggle is not over ; for in the nations where a free 
Bible, and a free school and a free press abound, there, here 
the successors of the men of the eleventh century are making 
one more fight. If we are true to our religion, it will be the 
last. 



HOLD UP YOUR HEAD. 127 



HOLD UP YOUR HEAD : SPEAK LOUD AND PLAIN. 

During the travels of the last few weeks and months, it 
has been a duty or privilege, and sometimes both, to attend 
diverse conventions of able, learned, earnest or good men, in 
the interests of religion or science or politics. 

The first was the Presbyterian General Assembly, where 
five hundred ministers and elders met and spent a fortnight 
in the business of the Church. The second was the Scien- 
tific Association. The other was a political State Conven- 
tion to nominate a Governor and other officers for the 
November election. 

The ministers and elders often failed to make themselves 
heard when addressing the house. This failure did not 
spring from a want of lung power, or from any defect in 
vocal organs. It may be safely assumed that no sensible 
man who has a weakness or want of the faculty of speech, 
will undertake to make a dumb-show in the presence of a 
congregation whose time and patience are limited. But it is 
no less true that nine out of ten failed to be heard distinctly 
and usefully over the whole house. The fault was entirely 
with the speakers. They did not try to be heard. The few 
immediately around them might be conscious of their wis- 
dom, but to the less favored, who sat in the more benighted 
regions, they were merely beating the air. 

This same fault is common in the pulpit. Ministers often 
let their voices fall toward the end of each sentence, and the 
last few words are quite inaudible to those in the distance. 

I once heard 'a pastor say: "I desire particular attention 
to the following notices" — then he gave the notices, and the 
people sitting around me could not hear even the subject 
matter of the notices, much less the times and places named. 

In every theological seminary there should be a school for 
training the voice : teaching and requiring young men to 
hold up their heads, to speak loud and plain. If the greatest 
of Grecian orators confronted the waves of the sea to enable 
himself to master the roar of a great assembly, surely Chris- 



128 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

tian preachers ought to qualify themselves to speak so as to 
be heard, 

In the Assembly, and in all ministers' meetings, there are 
few men who speak out so loud and plain that they com- 
mand attention, and reach the understanding of their hearers 
by sound words with sound enough to be heard. Dr. Mus- 
grave is one of the men who are always heard. Because he 
speaks plainly, the house always listens. There are compen- 
sations in Providence, and as he has not as perfect eyesight 
as many of his brethren, God has given him a better voice 
than any of them. Dr. Darling, of Albany, speaks distinctly 
and forcibly, and never fails to be heard with attention. The 
elders are rarely willing to speak up so as to reach the remote 
parts of the house. Mr. W. E. Dodge and Judge Drake were 
not heard for their much speaking, but when they did speak 
they were easily heard. Rev. Dr. Crosby is a model speaker 
in debate or in the pulpit. Would that all the Lord's proph- 
ets would open their mouths wide when they prophesy. 

But if the religious people were afraid to speak out so as 
to be heard, what shall we say of the scientists ? Men of 
learning and renown, who had consumed midnight hours and 
oil in preparing papers for public reading, appeared to the 
weary hearer to be pouring a confidential communication into 
the ear of the patient President. Not a sentence of a half- 
hour or an hour-long treatise was audible twenty feet from 
the platform on which the modest master of art and science 
whispered his discoveries and calculations. Exhausted in 
vain attempts to gather wisdom from lips that the bees of 
Hymettus had kissed, I sometimes fell asleep, and after 
refreshing dreams, awoke to find the flow of silence going 
on with the same delicious calm that lulled me into repose 
again. 

Now these papers will be read with interest and profit in 
print, and the Association deserves the gratitude of the pub- 
lic for important contributions. But there is very little 
advantage in getting an audie?ice without giving it something 
to hear. It is not eloquence, oratory, the graces and charm 
of public speaking, for which I am pleading. Few, very few, 



HOLD UP YOUR HEAD. 120 

have the gift. Few have been trained to the perfection of 
this highest of all arts. The greatest orator is the leader of 
men. It is not every man who is called to be a great speaker. 
But if a man cannot or will not speak so as to be heard, he 
is not called of God to speak in public. Whether a man of 
religion, letters, or science, if he cannot hold up his head, 
speak loud and plain, it were well that he had the grace of 
silence. 

But the politicians ! They met in the Town Hall. It was 
packed, piled, jammed. It was turbulent, restless, impatient, 
disorderly. But when a man was on his legs he spoke so as 
to be heard, or the multitude put him down. When they 
found that he had not the gift of voice or sense, they gave 
him rounds of applause that'cheered his heart at first, but it 
went on and on until he found there was no chance for him, 
and sinking into the abyss, "the subsequent proceedings 
interested him no more." 

Then sprang to his feet — no — he had no feet, for both 
were shot off in the war — but to his stumps, a little fellow, 
whose shrill voice rang like a clarion : the waves were stilled : 
his earnest, impassioned tones pierced the remotest corners 
of the house while he extolled his hero : and in seven min- 
utes he fixed the flints of the convention and carried his man 
in triumph. All these political speakers spoke to be heard 
and so that they could be heard. No one of them dawdled 
with his subject: or talked as if he were half asleep: 
or let his voice down with a half-finished sentence: or 
suffered his cause to fail for lack of physical and intel- 
lectual work. They threw their soul and body into the 
struggle. "They fought, like brave men, long and well." 
They compelled attention and got it. And I said to myself, 
"For what is all this?" And the answer came — "They 
fight for men : for place : for power over one another : for 
office : the spoils : but they could not be more in earnest if 
heaven were to be stormed and immortal glory were the prize 
and price of victory." 

It was nearing midnight when I left them in the fight and 
stepped out beneath the stars. And the infinite distance 



13° IRENMUS LETTERS. 

between the visible and the invisible, the temporal and 
eternal, appeared in the light of those lamps of God. If min- 
isters of Christ, elders in the Church, men who bear the 
responsibilities of God's work on earth, all who wear the 
name of Christian and rejoice in being redeemed, were as 
much in earnest as these political leaders, how they would 
push on the columns, until they had made Jesus the King of 
the Jews and Gentiles, and crowned him Lord of all. 

It is easy to say that sense is of more account than sound : 
that sound and fury signify nothing : and that the noisiest 
speakers are often the windiest : that word reminds me of a 
little story — 

This summer two distinguished Scotch ministers were on 
their travels, and together worshipped in a cathedral where 
the organ was so rapturously lovely that one of the ministers, 
an earnest hater of instruments in public worship, was com- 
pletely overcome by the power of the music. As they 
emerged from the temple, he said to his brother, " I will 
never speak another word against wind instruments, not 
even against you." 

But this is not to the point. My point is that preachers 
and all public speakers should speak loud enough to be heard 
by all the people in the house. As a hearer I sit before the 
preacher and see the movements of his lips, and as the man 
on the outside of the crowd said, when Senator Preston was 
speaking in the street, " He does the motion splendid," I 
say with the Apostle Paul, " If I know not the meaning of 
the voice, he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me." 



AMONG THE ICEBERGS. t^i 



AMONG THE ICEBERGS. 

The rush of the Arizona into an iceberg, and the awful 
peril of her passengers, bring to mind an old experience. In 
the month of March, 1854, I left Liverpool for New York 
in the steamer Baltic, Capt. Briggs, of the Collins line. It 
was my first voyage on a steamship, and naturally I was 
more sensitive to the several forms of danger than those are 
who have long been in the habit of " going down to the sea 
in ships." 

We had been out a few days only, I might say hours, before 
I was well satisfied that the captain would take the ship 
safely into port, if it required a year. The ship was new, 
stanch, and steady, and a well-built ship is as safe on the sea 
as a house is on the land. If this appears to be an extravagant 
remark, let me add that the best built dwellings are exposed 
to fire, lightning, hurricanes and mobs, and that a good ship 
is exposed to no more and no greater perils than these. The 
greatest danger to a ship arises from the incapacity or negli- 
gence of those who navigate her, and against these dangers 
no human foresight is adequate to provide. You pay your 
money and take your choice of steamers according to the 
best information you can get of the judgment of the men who 
manage the line. They may be deceived. And you may be 
lost at sea. But the risks are not much greater than in cross- 
ing Broadway a thousand times, or travelling by rail from 
Boston to San Francisco. 

Some years ago a stranger came into my office, and with- 
out introduction went on to say — " Long before the time when 
steamboats were on the river, I was going from New York to 
Albany on a sloop with several passengers. When we 
reached Tappan Zee, a great storm arose, and many were 
afraid the vessel would be overwhelmed. In the midst of 
the alarm a young and beautiful woman stepped from the 
cabin, and in a sweet voice, but without trembling, she said, 
4 In God's hands, we are as safe on the water as the land/ 
That lady became your mother, I have made her words my 



13* IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

motto through, life : have watched you so far in yours, and 
thought you would be interested in this incident." Having 
said this, the stranger took his departure. And I will return 
to the Baltic and Captain Briggs. 

The weather proved bad. The voyage was disagreeable. 
There were only forty or fifty cabin passengers on board, giv- 
ing us more room than company. But the silent, incessant 
vigilance of the commander inspired us all with a sense of 
serene security, so that we seemed to one another prisoners 
indeed, but sure to be well cared for, and in due time set at 
liberty. A week out, and we came into the region where ice- 
bergs might be expected, whether the almanac said so or not. 
In the morning I was on deck with the Captain, and he called 
my attention to a blazing, white light, in the distance, like 
the reflection of a mighty mirror set in the horizon, or a pal- 
ace of ice or glass coming down out of heaven. 

" That's an iceberg," he said calmly. I had never seen one, 
and rejoiced greatly that we were to make the acquaintance 
of one so soon. The captain did not share my enjoy- 
ment. 

Drop a bit of ice into a tumbler of water. It floats, but 
almost the whole of it is below the surface. A small frac- 
tion of the mass is out. As the gravity of ice is to water, so 
is the part above the surface to the part below. It makes no 
difference how large or how small the lump. It may be as big 
as a mountain, or as small as an apple, nine times as much of 
its weight will be under the water as above it. If, then, the 
huge mass stands like the Pyramid of Cheops out of the sea, 
it reaches nearly nine times as far below. Such was the 
immense cathedral-like, turreted, towering, stupendous pile 
as we gave it a wide margin, and passed it, glowing and bril- 
liant in the clear, cold morning sun. With the knowledge 
of its proportions, and the necessary fate of a ship that should 
run upon it, we looked with awe while its beauty was fascin- 
ating. There was "a weight of glory" in it. 

The iceberg which the Arizona sought to go through was 
seen from the Anchoria, and its dimensions were estimated 
at one hundred feet in height and five hundred feet in 



AMONG THE ICEBERGS. 1 33 

breadth ; a solid block one thousand feet by five hundred, 
millions of solid feet of ice. 

The steamer President had gone from New York with a 
precious company on board, to cross the sea, and had gone 
down without a sign. Not a spar or plank, not a cry, not a 
rumor, had ever come to any shore to intimate the fate of one 
of that great company. Whether the eloquent Chaplain Cook- 
man had time to speak to them of the sailor's Friend, we 
never knew, but the general impression was, and still is, that, 
being very heavily laden and running against an iceberg, she 
went down in the twinkling of an eye. We shall know no 
more about it until the sea gives up its dead. 

We talked of this and other disasters all that day, and as 
another night set in, and we were still in the region which 
icebergs traverse, it seemed to me quite jmportant that I 
should take care of the ship. 

" What's to be done, Captain ?" I said. 

" Nothing but what was done last night." 

He then kindly explained to me the special watches that 
were set, the extra spies, the positions the'y occupied, the 
mode of changes, and the watchmen to watch the watchmen, 
and then he added : 

" I am here as I was through the night before, and shall be 
until we are out of all danger." 

At ten o'clock I went below and turned in, to meditate on 
the horrors of a night encounter with an iceberg ; and to roll 
with the ship till the morning. I thought of that " young 
and beautiful woman" whose words had comforted a stranger 
in many storms. I thought of Him who holds the waves 
and his children in his hands. And the faithful captain who 
is the agent of Divine Providence for my care — and — and 
— and — just then the morning sun was shining into my 
port-window and I had been sleeping soundly eight good 
hours. 

But the vigilance of the captain was not relaxed until his 
ship was safely in port. 

I was on the platform when Everett made his splendid 
oration at the inauguration of the Albany Observatory in 1856 



134 IREN^US LETTERS. 

and heard him relate this incident : " Coming across the 
Atlantic on a steamer, I asked the captain how near he could 
determine the precise location of his ship by the best obser- 
vations. He said within about three miles. When we were 
supposed to be off Cape Race and were pacing the deck, I 
asked him how far he supposed the Cape to be, and he said, 
' Perhaps three or four miles.' Thus, according to his own 
reckoning, we might be on the Cape any moment, for he 
could not tell within three miles where we were." 

Such a fact illustrates, and ought to compel, the extremest 
vigilance and carefulness, because after all is done that can 
be done, on sea or on land, the skill and the power of man 
have their limits, and our refuge is in God. 



AN INTERESTING BEGGAR. 

In the midst of my morning studies yesterday, when every 
moment is precious to a man of business or letters ; when 
every pastor or student wishes to be let alone ; when 
thoughtless or impudent people make it a point to call 
because they are quite sure to catch their victim in; it was 
during these precious hours that I was summoned to give 
attention to a young lady who wished to see me on very 
urgent business. 

With that sense of being annoyed, if not irritated, which 
every hardworking man feels, when his favorite and only 
hours of solitary labor are rudely broken in upon by a rob- 
ber of his time, I laid aside my pen that was just then trying 
to do its very best for you, dear friend, and reluctantly 
waited upon the young woman who had made this unsea- 
sonable demand. 

She was neatly dressed, very small, delicately featured, 
invalid in appearance, pale, thin, tender-eyed. And thus 
looking, thus she spoke : 

" My mother and I are now in this city, in great distress 



AN INTERESTING BEGGAR. 135 

for the want of a small sum of money. Mother is a writer 
for the press ; she contributes to the literary periodicals and 
has several pieces in the hands of publishers, from whom 
she is in daily expectation of receiving money ; but we have 
been compelled to go from one lodging to another, cheaper 
and cheaper, until now we are to be turned into the street 
without shelter. We have had no breakfast to-day, and 
have not the means to pay for a morsel of food. In this dis- 
tress, I have come to you" (and here came in some words 
of flattery which are omitted as not essential to the story), 
"and, if you will lend us ten dollars till our remittance comes 
from the publishers, you will save us from suffering," etc. 
etc. etc. 

I said : " To whom do you refer me in this city, that I 
may ascertain the general correctness of your statements, 
and especially as to your character, for I never give to 
strangers until I have made inquiries as to their worthi- 
ness ?" 

"We have no references," she replied; "we are total 
strangers in the city ; there is not a person of any standing 
to whom you could go to learn anything of us ; we are suf- 
fering, actually starving, and we want only a little to keep 
us a few days till our money comes in." 

I pursued my inquiries until I learned where they had 
been living for some weeks past, and, assuring her that I 
would attend to the matter that very day, I gave her a trifle 
with which to procure bread for the morning, and dismissed 
her. Her appeal was touching ; but it was more the silent 
pathos of her feeble, tearful, pallid, sinking appearance, than 
the pitiful tale she told. The heart of old Pharaoh would 
have been softened in her presence. 

I returned to my study, but the interview had upset me 
for the morning, and I could think of little else than this 
literary lady and her invalid daughter at the mercy of some 
merciless landlord, turned out of doors and wanting shelter 
and food. What a brute was I, too, to be coolly sitting 
down at my table, while these interesting people were wait- 
ing with anxious hearts for the sweet relief that I was, per- 



136 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

haps, soon to bring! Dropping my pen, I set forth on this 
errand of loving-kindness. How good a man feels when 
thus engaged ! What can be more satisfying to one's best 
nature, than to be able to provide for the poor, especially 
women, ladies, literary, unfortunate and very interesting! 

My first call was at the place where they had last boarded. 

" Yes," said the man of the house, u they left here yester- 
day to go to the bank ! and draw some money with which to 
pay me what they owed me, and they have not returned." 

"To the bank for money! why I thought they were poor." 

" O no," said he, "they were very particular to have every- 
thing of the best quality, but they were not particular about 
the price ; they paid freely until the last day or two ; there 
goes their man now," pointing out of the window to a well- 
dressed man walking by. 

u They kept a man, did they ?" " Yes, he was constantly 
running of errands for them ; but what it was all about I did 
not know." 

" Where did they come from to you ?" I asked. He gave 
me the name of a hotel, to which I repaired, and introduced 
myself and errand to the manager, who instantly responded : 

" They are not people, Sir, w r ho deserve your sympathy or 
attention ; they have been at other hotels and stayed as long 
as they could ; here they had two men with them, one a mes- 
senger in their service; a bad lot, Sir; quite unworthy of 
any trouble \,oyou, Sir." 

By this time my eyes began to open leisurely, and I per- 
ceived that I was running about town after a couple of 
women whom I had better drop before I took them up. 
But curiosity, not charity, now led me on, and this was the 
result. 

For two or three years at least, and perhaps more, they 
have been infesting this city, adventuresses, preying upon 
the clergy and literary people, raising money on substan- 
tially the same story that the little beggar told me. They 
are Roman Catholics, but they are not particular about the 
religion of the ministers whom they select as their gulls. 
They write beautiful letters, so sweet, so imploring, so sad, 



COWPER AND RAY PALMER. 137 

and their messenger, as a friend, delivers the letters after a 
call by the invalid daughter. They live in luxury on the 
money thus extracted from tender-hearted shepherds, whom 
they fleece as innocent sheep. They have been generously 
offered an asylum for life by the Roman Catholic Church, 
and have refused to accept it, preferring to play the confi- 
dence game which they find so profitable. I feel quite 
slighted by their neglecting to call on me until they have 
worn out the patience of nearly all the other " brethren." 

And this disgraceful story has a moral. Because the most 
of good people give without investigating, wicked adven- 
turers, impudent impostors, and lazy huzzies, with smooth 
faces, and languid looks, and plausible tales of woe, continue 
to persecute the charitable, and to get their living by shame- 
less persistence in beggary. There is no law by which they 
can be put into prison. But it is a safe and wise law for 
every one to enact for himself, " Never give one cent of 
money to a beggar on his or her own story alone." 



COWPER AND RAY PALMER 

The first of these poets has been a fireside favorite in Chris- 
tian families for nearly a hundred years. " Melancholy 
marked him for her own," and the charm of sadness, a 
strange sweet sadness, lends a pathetic interest to his name and 
works, so tender, holy and strong that he will never lose his 
place in the affections of those who love pure English song. 
From the Task to John Gilpin, the grave to the gay, illus- 
trating the varieties of genius perhaps as widely as they 
appear in any poems of one author in our language, we never 
find a line the poet "dying wished to blot," while there are 
passages and pictures all the way along that delight the eye. 
and the ear, endearing the writer to the reader, making his 
name and his works familiar in the family circle, and his lines 
more frequently quoted with a knowledge of their source, 



138 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

than the words of almost any other of the bards of Eng- 
land. 

The hymns of Cowper are the best of his works. The 
longer poems, like " The Task," " Table Talk," " Progress of 
Error," have a vast deal of prose in them, measured by syl- 
lables into lines of equal length, and by this process much 
good sense has been buried, for many will read a sensible 
essay who will justly avoid the same thoughts done into 
blank verse, or worse still, into rhyme. But Cowper lives in 
the hearts of Christian readers rather as the writer of hymns, 
with which the spirit rises into converse with the unseen and 
eternal, than as the author of the more elaborate poems that 
cost him intense labor and many pains. 

But there is no one of the many poems of Cowper now 
precious to the Church of God, more valued by Christians in 
this and all other countries, than some of the hymns of Ray 
Palmer, whose Poetical Works have just been published. It 
has been with him as with many another writer of songs, that 
one of them attains such a popular pre-eminence that the 
poet is supposed to have that one only offspring. No one 
thinks of Key except as the author of the " Star Spangled 
Banner." What did Payne ever write but " Home, Sweet 
Home?" Even Heber's Missionary Hymn wafts his name 
more widely than all else he has written or said. Dr. Muh- 
lenberg will live longer for teaching others to sing " I would 
not live alway," than as the founder of a hospital or St. 
Johnland. Charlotte Elliott wrote many sweet poems, but 
"Just as I am " is the one thing she did, as " Nearer, my God, 
to Thee" is the perennial flower in the wreath of Mrs. 
Flower Adams. This list might be readily enlarged to 
illustrate the now obvious fact that the world seizes on one, 
perhaps the best, perhaps not the best, but certainly the one 
thing of a writer that it wants, and sings it along down the 
years of time ; does it into the languages of earth ; and in all 
lands and climes it becomes the censer in which the saints 
offer their praise and longing desires before the Throne. To 
give the human soul fit words to express what it otherwise 
could not utter is an unspeakable pleasure. And so, I think, 



COWPER AND RAY PALMER. 139 

the makers of those old Latin hymns that have wafted martyr 
souls to glory, and they whose songs are now the joy of the 
Church in the Wilderness, must be glad even in the gladness 
of heaven that God gave them words which they strung on 
the lyres of Christendom, to ring in the churches of Christ 
from the rising to the setting sun. Ray Palmer says of his 
hymn, 

" My faith looks up to Thee," 

that he " cannot doubt it came from the inspiration of the 
Spirit of God." From Him all holy desires come. And as 
this precious poem is a holy desire, an expression of faith 
and love and hope, it may claim with great force its origin in 
the fountain of all that is pure and good. With that poem 
of less than thirty lines his name is linked as Wolfe's name 
is with " Not a drum was heard," and other names, — " the few 
the immortal names that were not born to die." I sat down 
more than a score of years ago, a stranger in a foreign church, 
and opened the hymn book to this hymn, marked as by 
an author unknown. I knew him well, and loved to read in 
a strange land a song of Zion by one who, in my own, was a 
brother and friend. And as I journeyed Eastward, and in 
other tongues than ours heard hymns to Jesus, this was 
always one of them, everywhere recognized as the one on 
which the soul calmly rests in sight of the Lamb of God, who 
taketh away the sin of the world. Even under the shadow 
of the Seraglio Palace, in the city of the Sultan, I found them 
turning the words of this and other hymns into what seemed 
a jargon to me ; but when youthful voices uttered them to 
the tune of Olivet, I felt their power, and saw that in all 
places and in all tongues the love of Christ is the same, and 
delights in its utterance by the same signs. 

And there are other poems in the volume now in our 
hands, with more poetic life in them than this, and that will as 
certainly retain life as long. They will not touch so many 
hearts, and therefore never will be so popular in the best 
sense of that word. I have put the author's name with that 
of Cowper at the head of this column, because the larger 



140 IRENjEUS letters. 

poem of Dr. Palmer, " Home, or the Unlost Paradise," and 
some of the shorter poems treat of those themes in domestic 
and social life which employed the fine powers of the friend 
of Mrs. Unwin, Lady Austen, and John Newton. Dr. Palmer 
has all the love of nature and acquaintance with its varied 
charms, all the taste for those delicate refinements of home 
without which Cowper could not exist: and, then, unlike 
Cowper, Dr. Palmer never sinks into the melancholy mood : 
never dwells on the dark side of things : never thinks of " a 
frowning Providence" with a smiling face behind. Dr. Pal- 
mer is ever in the light : rejoices in the Lord always. The 
lark in the morning is not more joyous than the " rising soul " 
of the poet who lives in the light of faith divine. Even in 
singing of one whom fear has called "the king of terrors," 
Dr. Palmer, with that firmness of a Christian hero, writes : 

To Faith's keen eye 
Thou, Death, art light ; 'tis but to sense 
That thine are dead ! 

And in the strong confidence of that gospel which brings 
life and immortality to light, he says : 

" From yon blest shores, 
When souls redeemed shall backward turn, 

To look on thee, 
All beautiful thy form shall be : 
Thy ministers once deemed so stern, 
Shall seem sweet ministers of grace, 

That Heaven adores !" 

That is poetry. It converts death into an angel of blessing 
to them that have overcome, and scatters the gloom of dying 
and the grave by the power of the glory that is to be revealed. 
Such poets are among God's best gifts to men. Well may 
they be called bards, and prophets and seers. They make 
(poieo, poema) wings for souls. They are not many. Poets 
do not come in troops. Happy is the age that bears a pair 
of them. The race will not die out. Heaven sends them 
when they are needed. And so in successive ages the Church 



THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 141 

finds among her sons and daughters those who set her wants 
to the harmonies of numbers, and, as music is the universal 
language of the soul, it comes that the saints of all tongues 
unite with one heart and voice in such songs as those of 
Dr. Palmer. 



THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 

It is quite likely that I shall offend some very good people 
by this letter. Certainly some very good people have offended 
me by the use they make of the name that is above every 
name. And it is of this use and abuse that I have a word or 
two to say, and with all gentleness and diffidence ; for they 
who are to be criticised are far better people than he who 
ventures the criticism. 

Full well do I know that the precious name of Jesus is the 
human name of the blessed Saviour, and when written in 
another form, as Joshua, it has none of those associations 
that render it so sacred to all who love Him. 

I will first tell you what has impelled me to this present 
writing, and then we will talk the matter over. In a large 
religious meeting, where a high degree of spiritual life was 
apparent, a revival meeting, it might be called, — so warm, 
earnest, and impassioned were the appeals and exhortations, 
— there were some speakers who, having had large experi- 
ence in Sunday-school work and young men's meetings, were 
very fluent and eloquent, rousing the feelings of the assem- 
blies by their glowing addresses. With them the only name 
by which the Saviour of sinners was spoken of was Jesus ; 
and this would not be the occasion of any criticism, if they 
had not employed it with such familiarity and frequency, and 
with the prefix of such terms of endearment, as to take from 
the name that association of reverence and respectful affec- 
tion with which it is always invested in my mind and that of 
many who have expressed to me their sentiments on this 
subject. It is not in good taste for a husband and wile, 01 



142 1RENJEUS LETTERS. 

parents and children, or brothers and sisters, to lavish, with 
great profusion, very strong terms of endearment upon one 
another, in the presence of company. The practice suggests 
to the hearer the possibility that such warm expressions are 
for the purpose of misleading those who hear, and that it is 
within the realms of belief that those who seem to be so 
extravagantly affectionate in public, may be just a little less 
so in the seclusion of domestic life. And when these burn- 
ing and effective speakers were, in nearly every sentence, 
speaking of dear Jesus, sweet Jesus, precious Jesus, the dear 
little Jesus, darling Jesus, brother Jesus, friend Jesus, and 
stiil more frequently "Jesus;" as if he were no more than one 
of their own number, one to be spoken to and spoken of as a 
child, companion, and every-day person, I was asking, " Do 
they love Him so much more than others ?" It hurt me, as 
if one dearer to me than life was being lightly handled in the 
face of the world. 

I remembered that a writer, whom the Spirit of God had 
taught, declared of this Saviour that God had " highly exalted 
Him," and " given him a name that is above every name, 
that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in 
heaven, earth, and under the earth !" Such a triumphant 
prophecy, for the fulfilment of which the martyrs and pro- 
phets and faithful men and women have looked, and will 
yet anticipate with longings that no words can clothe, I 
would not construe into a precept to forbid the use of that 
great name except with an outward sign of reverence. Such 
genuflexions are often superstitious and never necessary to 
testify respect. But the reverence in which that name is 
held, and every name by which God maketh himself known, 
by all who have a becoming sense of the infinite exaltation 
of Him above us, forbids that his name should be spoken 
familiarly, or with such frequency and levity as to make us 
forget that we are unworthy to take it upon our lips. 

Especially is this familiar style of speaking to be regretted 
when it is indulged, as it is more than elsewhere, in the 
presence of very young persons. It abounds in Sunday- 
school eloquence. It is the staple of thousands of speeches 



THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 143 

to children. It is not unknown when the little hearers are 
expected to laugh at the funny anecdotes of the entertaining 
speaker. It does not bring the Saviour nearer to them : 
it does tend to diminish their reverence for him, and thus to 
weaken the hold upon them of his commands. 

If you reply to these words that it is the human name only 
of Christ that is thus employed, I would remind you that 
they who think of Christ only as a man, do not, in their 
writings or addresses, indulge in such familiarity. Their 
cultivated taste perhaps forbids it. But if good taste is 
offended thereby, there must be, in the nature of the case, 
something radically wrong in it. 

Poetry, passion, exalted sentiment, will justify the use of 
terms, occasionally, that cease to be allowed in the ordinary 
duties and enjoyments of religious service. The poetical 
language of some portions of Holy Scripture may never be 
properly used except in its connections, that the true import 
may be understood. Hymns in praise of Jesus are among 
the most precious of human writings : 

" Jesus, lover of my soul," 

is as fervid as the Song of Songs. 

" How sweet the name of Jesus sounds 
In a believer's ear ; 
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, 
And drives away his fear." 

"Jesus, I love thy charming name, 

'Tis music to my ear, 

Fain would I shout it out so loud 

That earth and heaven should hear." 

" Jesus, the name that calms our fears, 
That bids our sorrows cease ; 
'Tis music in the sinner's ears, 

'Tis life and health and peace." 

Such stanzas are dear to every Christian heart that delights 
in sacred song. And the hymns of the Church are more 
abundant in praise of Jesus than on any other theme. They 



144 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

are criticised by the cold and uninitiated as sensuous, mate- 
rialistic and voluptuous. Fanaticism finds in our best hymns 
lines to express unsanctified emotions. But it finds them 
just as easily in the inspired songs of the Bible. We sing, 

" Millions of years my wondering eyes 
Shall o'er thy beauties rove," 

and only a very sensual person can find anything sensual in 
the words. We sing joyously such lines as these I 

" Sweet Jesus, every smile of thine 
Shall fresh endearment bring ; 
And thousand tastes of new delight 
From all thy graces spring. 

11 Haste, my Beloved, fetch my soul 
Up to thy blest abode ; 
Fly, for my spirit longs to see 
My Saviour and my God." 

Such is the language of poetry, of highly wrought imagina- 
tion, taking the wings of music, and soaring into the spiritual, 
the unseen and eternal. It is susceptible of abuse, and it is 
not strange that they who do not know what it means to be 
in union with Christ should wrest, as they do many other 
words, to a use which they were not made to answer. And 
the name of Jesus, and all the names by which the Father, 
the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the attributes of God, and the 
offices which he executes, are made known to men, should 
be used with reverence on all occasions. 

Profane speaking is not unheard in the pulpit. The plat- 
form has more of it. The Sunday-school hears the most of 
it. Oh that we might hear the. last of it ! 



A WEEK IN THE WHITE HOUSE. I4 $ 



A WEEK IN THE WHITE HOUSE. 

Mr. Franklin Pierce was nominated for the Presidency of 
the United States in the summer of 1852, and was elected in 
November. Between the time of his nomination and elec- 
tion a bright, beautiful and promising son, his only child, 
was killed by a railroad accident. Mrs. Pierce, a lady of 
great loveliness of character, daughter of the Rev. Dr. 
Appleton, President of Bowdoin College, was crushed by 
this blow, and the bereaved parents, childless and heart- 
broken, went to Washington. In the freshness of their grief 
they saw no company. They went to the church of which 
the late Rev. Dr. John C. Smith was pastor, and at the close 
of service he spoke with them. I had recently published 
"Thoughts on the Death of Children," and Mrs. Pierce 
remarked to him that she had been reading the book with 
much comfort. 

In the course of that week I was in Washington making 
some arrangements for a foreign journey, and Dr. Smith 
spoke to me of Mrs. Pierce having derived comfort from my 
little book, and he asked me to call on them, though as yet 
they had received no one. I did so : Mrs. Pierce received 
me at once, and sent for the President, who joined us. The 
sympathies of parents in a common affliction soon united 
our hearts. The interview was sacred. 

I went to Europe and the East, and was absent a year. 
Mr. Pierce had been in office about three years when I was 
in Washington again. After being there two or three days I 
called on the President, and he insisted on sending to the 
hotel for my luggage, and my spending a week with him. 
Mrs. Pierce joined in the invitation with arguments that 
made it impossible to refuse, and in the course of an hour I 
was in my room in the White House. 

As my visit was purely social, having no reference to 
political or public matters, it would be inconsistent with the 
whole tenor of my correspondence to speak of much that 



146 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

made that week one of the most memorable and remarkable 
of my life. And political prejudices are so strong that we 
are apt to judge the private character of public men, espe- 
cially Presidents, by our likes or dislikes of their party rela- 
tions. This was stiikingly illustrated by a fact resulting 
from my visit. In a letter from Washington I mentioned 
that the President prayed daily with his family, assembling 
the servants in the library for that purpose. One of the sub- 
scribers to the Observer ordered it discontinued, giving as 
the reason that he "would not have a paper coming into his 
house that says Pierce prays." In my simplicity I had sup- 
posed any Christian would be glad to hear that his worst 
enemy was praying, but I was mistaken in that opinion. 

Mr. Pierce did not lead the devotions in family worship 
while I was there, insisting that it was my duty as a clergy- 
man. Mrs. Pierce told me that he always conducted it when 
a minister was not present, and that no public engagements 
were allowed to interfere with the daily family service. He 
called upon me invariably to ask the blessing at table, but 
one day, as we sat down, he involuntarily did it himself, and 
then turning to me, said : " Excuse me, but for the moment 
I forgot." It showed his habit. 

Every day, except Sunday, he had a dinner party, usually 
from eight to ten gentlemen and ladies, and this brought 
together the most distinguished members of Congress, stran- 
gers visiting the Capital, and officers of the Cabinet. Half a 
dozen wine-glasses were placed at each plate, and as many 
kinds of wine were freely served : but at the President's plate 
was no wine-glass, and he drank nothing but water. In the 
early part of his public life he was addicted to the free use of 
intoxicating liquors, but he had put himself upon rigorous 
abstinence, even from wine at his own table. 

Once a week he excused himself from whatever company 
might be present in the evening, while he went unobserved 
to a prayer meeting in the lecture-room of the church. He 
sat in a back seat, unnoticed by any one but the pastor, who 
said nothing about it to his people, though he mentioned it 
to me in speaking of the President's private life. 



A WEEK IN THE WHITE HOUSE. 



147 



One morning Mr. Pierce asked me to step with him into 
his bed-chamber. The bed was standing a few feet from the 
wall. We sat down on its side, and he drew a curtain from 
a portrait hung low, and near the head of the bed. It told 
its own sad story of his beautiful boy, his son, his only son, 
who 'was, killed as they were coming into this mansion. He 
put his hand into mine and wept. Who could refrain from 
weeping with him ? " It is dark, desolate, dreadful ; we 
thought it would be for his pleasure ; that his future would 
be so much brighter : but my wife and I are longing now to 
go away and be at peace." I had no words. We sat some 
moments in silence and withdrew. 

At breakfast one morning Mr. Pierce said to me : " I 
would like to have you see my Cabinet together, and if you 
will be at home at one o'clock I will call for you at your 
room." At the hour he called, and led me to the apartment 
where the members had been in session, and were now 
through with business. After introduction I had a few 
words with each of them, except one : he resumed his seat 
and his writing, and yet I remember him quite as distinctly 
as any of them, for he has since been very distinguished as 
Jefferson Davis, President of the Southern Confederacy, 

William L. Marcy was then Secretary of State, and had 
been also at the head of the War Department in a previous 
administration. Governor Marcy, wishing to make a moral 
reflection, observed ; 

" Is it not strange, sir, that men are willing to come here 
and bear these burdens, and for what ?" 

" Oh no," I replied ; "not strange, Governor, some gentle- 
men are willing to come twice !" 

He laughed heartily, and said, " Ah, there you have me," 
for he was one of them. 

James Guthrie of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury, 
was a man of commanding appearance. Mr. Dobbin, Secre- 
tary of the Navy, from North Carolina, was then in delicate 
health, and did not live long after retirement from office. 
Robert McClelland, Secretary of the Interior, has just now 
died in Michigan. Mr. James Campbell was Postmaster- 



148 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

General, a Roman Catholic, who alluded to that fact himself 
when saying some pleasant words to me. Caleb Cushing 
was Attorney-General, a man of such varied accomplish- 
ments, industry, versatility, and capacity for public affairs, 
that he was for many years, under successive administra- 
tions, indispensable, whether in or out of office. 

A few years after this, Mr. Marcy was residing at the 
Hotel Sans Souci in Ballston Spa, in the summer, and my 
family were guests in the same house. The alarm was given 
that Mr. Marcy was dead! He had just come in from a 
walk, and lying down upon the bed, expired. The room was 
soon filled with the boarders ; a physician was summoned : 
he searched for signs of life, and asked one of the ladies of 
my family to place her hand over his heart, as her more 
delicate touch might detect its throb. All was still. His 
eyes were wide open, and she closed them. 

In the course of the week Mrs. Pierce was to hold a levee, 
and she was so kind as to request me to assist in the recep- 
tion. A few minutes before 12 M., the appointed hour, the 
President called for me, and we went into the East Room 
awaiting Mrs. Pierce, and the opening of the doors for com- 
pany. We walked up and down the long apartment in 
silence : his thoughts I do not know ; but mine were such as 
these — "What a sublime position does this man hold: the 
chosen Chief Magistrate of one of the most powerful nations 
on the earth ; in a few moments the doors will open, and 
ambassadors from distant kingdoms, senators, scholars, 'fair 
women and brave men ' will enter, pay their respects and 
retire. ,, As such reflections were in my mind, he laid his 
hand on my shoulder and, as if he divined my thoughts, 
remarked: "After all, a man who can preach the gospel, 
and win men to Christ, holds the highest office on earth." 

In a few minutes we were in position, receiving the distin- 
guished company. The day was brilliant, the dresses were 
elegant morning costumes, the company included represen- 
tatives of many courts and peoples. Mr. Pierce was a gen- 
tleman of graceful manners, and Mrs. Pierce, very delicate 
in health, was an accomplished woman of the highest per- 



A WEEK IN THE WHITE HOUSE. 149 

sonai worth. Sad, almost melancholy, she shrank from such 
a scene, in which duty held her, but she would be equal to 
her position. 

Two lads were presented, strangers and unattended. She 
greeted them kindly, almost tenderly, and as they turned 
away she looked at me with eyes full of tears, and said softly, 
" Ah, those boys, those dear boys." And there in the midst 
of all the splendor of that scene, with fashion, pride and 
state around her, the vision of her boy, her lost boy, her 
only child, had entered the hall, and her poor heart died 
within her as she thought of him and her buried love. She 
trembled as with an ague, and, at my suggestion, sat down 
until she regained composure. 

During the week that I passed in the President's house, I 
heard less of party and politics than would be heard in a 
day outside. At table, when leading statesmen were present, 
with conflicting views of public questions, it was proper to 
avoid such topics as would provoke discussion. The con- 
versation was, for the most part, on live subjects in litera- 
ture, art, philosophy, and the progress of the age. Ex- 
Senator N. P. Tallmadge, of Dutchess County, who became 
a Spiritualist, had recently put forth a volume of revelations 
from statesmen and others in the spirit-world. After dinner, 
extracts were read by these living statesmen from the utter- 
ances of Madison, Calhoun and others, and the general 
impression was that they had amazingly degenerated in 
intellectual force by their change of state. Even Mr. Tall- 
madge, it was remarked, must have softened, or he could not 
have edited such twaddle and thought it sense. 

The Sabbath at the White House was wholly devoted to 
such pursuits as would mark a Christian home in New Eng- 
land. No company was received. We went to church twice. 
The reading and conversation were in keeping with the day. 
In the evening I had a long conversation with Mrs. Pierce 
on the subject always uppermost in her mind : the boy that 
died. She told me — but I cannot feel it to be proper to 
write the words of a fond mother, whose life was blighted in 
the hour of her brightest hope. 



IS© IRENES US LETTERS. 

Mr. and Mrs. Pierce have been dead several years. King 
David said, when his boy died, " I shall go to him." They 
have found their boy. 



LESSON FROM A SICK-ROOM. 

" Since Christ and we are one, 

Why should we doubt or fear ? 
Since he in heaven has fixed his throne, 
He'll fix his members there." 

Hearing that a friend of mine, a brother minister, whom I 
had long known and highly esteemed, was very ill, I made 
haste to go and see him. He had been suddenly attacked 
with pneumonia, a form of disease which has carried off so 
many of our friends this winter, and is one of the most dread- 
ful scourges in our trying climate. But the crisis was past 
before I came, and he was evidently on the mend. 

" I was almost over the river," he said, as 1 took his hand ; 
" 1 thought I was crossing atone time, but it was not His will, 
and 1 am here yet : I am very glad to see you once more." 

1 sat down by the bedside, and he looked me full in the 
face, with a sweet, loving smile, and then, to my surprise and 
delight, he said : 

" That letter of yours about manners in church : putting 
on their coats during the Doxology : how I did enjoy it !" 

It was a real pleasure to know that, in the sick-room, on a 
bed of pain and perhaps of death, though apprehension of 
that event was now over, the words that I had written, with 
no thought of their being read with such surroundings, had 
ministered, not for a moment only but for after thoughts, to 
one in trouble, and had given him something to think of and 
enjoy. And then I talked with him of his life-work and 
mine : how the shadows were lengthening as the sun was 
going down ; and what we had tried to do for God and our fel- 
low-men ; how we had often been misunderstood and oftener 
misrepresented, but the Master knew it all, and in the stormi- 



LESSON FROM A SICK-ROOM. 15 1 

est weather whispered to the soul, " It is I, be not afraid." 
And I learned much from the few sentences he spoke to me 
of his confidence in God when the end seemed to be at hand, 
and he thought death was at the door : 

" Nothing in my hand I bring, 
Simply to thy cross I cling." 

Years of service in one of the most self-denying of all the 
departments of Christian labor, though much in my sight, 
were nothing in his when he looked back on his work. He 
was ready to say, " When did I see Thee sick or in prison 
and came unto Thee ?" It was less than nothing when the 
light of eternity came in through the chinks of the falling 
tabernacle ! " Not what I have done," he might have said, 
"it is what Christ has done, and that alone : He saw me sick 
and he came and healed me : He saw me in prison and 
opened the door and brought me forth redeemed by his 
blood :* He saw me naked and clothed me with his righteous- 
ness : starving, and he fed me with the bread of Life Ever- 
lasting." 

Then we went to this precious Saviour with our wants, and 
told him all we would, thanked him for the unspeakable 
gift of himself, and made a new dedication of ourselves to 
him, whether for death or for life ; for, living or dying, we 
would be the Lords. To every sentence, every clause in 
these prayers, the sick man responded with fervent spirit, 
and pressed my hand in his, so that I knew his soul was in 
sympathy with mine, while we had communion with our 
common Saviour and Lord. 

" The fellowship of kindred minds 
Is like to that above." 

I have just come from this chamber of sickness, this holy 
communion with one of the saints, and I am almost ashamed 
to mention the one thing that ought to be known to under- 
stand the fulness of the pleasure which this hour has given 
me. He is not of the same religious denomination with me. 
Is it not a very small thing to say ? And is it not a shame 



152 IRE N ALUS LETTERS. 

that I should write it, as having the least possible bearing 
upon the subject of Christian intercourse ? He and I are not 
of the same sect or sect-ion of the Church of Christ : that is 
all : we are both believers in Him, and therefore members of 
Him, and so members one of another. When he lies on a bed 
of pain, I suffer with him and want to take a part of his suf- 
ferings, and yet, because we are not called by the same Chris- 
tian name, it is thought by many that we are not in full sym- 
pathy and intercommunion of soul. 

Four of us were at dinner this afternoon. The golden 
oranges were very large ; I divided one into four parts, each 
of us took a sect of it, and ate. It was the same orange of 
which we partook : it was equally sweet and refreshing and 
healthful to us all : and every one said, " What an exquisite 
orange this is ;" not " My orange is better than yours ;" not 
"Yours is no orange, mine is the only one that is good ;" not 
" Yours is only a sect, a part cut off, mine is the original 
fruit." No, there was no such nonsense at the table. We all 
partook of the root and fatness of the orange-tree, and knew in 
our own souls that it was the same fruit, as good for one as for 
another, and equally sweet to the taste. And as we were 
eating, I was saying to myself, that dear good brother whom 
I was holding by the hand an hour ago, while both of us put 
ours into the hands of the same atoning and only Saviour, is 
surely as near to me as if he were called by the same family 
name. And this was the lesson that I brought away from 
the sick-room of my friend and brother. It is good for the 
whole Christian Church. It is Christianity itself. Sad, 
indeed, that we must teach it as an elementary truth at this 
late day in the history of Christ's Kingdom. And sadder still 
it is that so many who profess and call themselves Christians 
are unable or unwilling to see that there is just as much of 
Christ in another sect of the Church as in the section to which 
they belong, and that all are Christ's who have been made 
partakers with him of "the divine nature." There is noth- 
ing in this that requires or implies a loss of attachment to 
our own creeds or forms. They have their uses, and the 
older we grow, and the more we learn, the stronger becomes 



THE GREAT EXAGGERATOR. 1 53 

every honest man's attachment to the doctrines and the 
methods which he has intelligently adopted and professed. 
Latitudinarianism and Liberalism are the pet names by which 
weak and ignorant and often bad men would conceal their 
hatred of the good and true. The holiest of all things is the 
right thing, and he who thinks he has the right will stick to 
it. But charity is kind. It endureth all things. It is love. 
And whoever has his heart filled with the spirit of the Master 
is my brother ; if he is ever so far away from me in his ways 
of worship, he is my brother, and has a place in my heart's 
best love. 

All this I have written you, as the lesson learned at the 
bedside of my brother minister this afternoon, and having 
put it upon paper, I will say Good-night. 



THE GREAT EXAGGERATOR. 

Riding up in a street-car, I was by the side of a young man 
who had several copies of a well-known weekly newspaper 
in his hand. He made conversation with me very freely 
and was disposed to be communicative. In response to my 
observation that he had a large supply of newspaper, he 
said that he was on this paper, handing me one of the lot. 
And when I showed some curiosity to know what depart- 
ment of the journal he filled, he said, " It might, perhaps, be 
called the exaggeration department. I write an article every 
week which is to be a wonderful story, a narrative of remark- 
able facts, not necessarily real, or true, but things that might 
possibly be true, and so will entertain the reader and aston- 
ish him some." 

I was amused by the coolness with which he detailed his 
business, and asked him if there was anything of his in that 
line in the paper he had given me. 

" Oh yes," he replied, " I have been writing this week on 
the rats of Brazil : here it is." 

Here he opened the paper and called my attention to the 



154 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

part of it which he fills with his imagination and invention. 
It described with great minuteness the immense numbers 
and size of the rats in Brazil — they grow as big as dogs, are 
very fierce, attacking children often, and are the dread of 
animals twice their size. Illustrations were given of their 
ferocity and great strength, and the measures adopted to 
reduce their numbers, if they could not be exterminated. 
When I asked him what was the source of his information, 
he said frankly he knew nothing about it, but had made it 
up, knowing very well it would be interesting to read, and 
yet nobody would care enough about it to inquire into its 
truth and detect the exaggeration. 

" I am now writing," he continued, " another paper on 
1 the Cockroaches of Japan.' Do you know whether there 
are any in that curious country?" 

My studies in natural history had not been directed that 
way, and I told him frankly I did not know that a cockroach 
had ever landed on that shore, but I had no doubt they were 
abundant there as here. 

"Well, it don't make much difference whether there are 
any or not : as I know their habits in this country, I shall 
give them many that are peculiar to Japan, where the people 
do everything in just the opposite way from ours : so I will 
make the cockroach a delightful domestic animal, which the 
ladies are fond of playing with as a pet, &c, you see ?" 

"Yes, I see, but do not greatly admire the work you are 
doing : a man with genius enough to invent such stuff is fit 
for something better, more elevating and useful, Besides, 
what's the difference between this and lying?" 

" All the difference in the world : this is harmless and 
amusing: people love to read wonderful stories. Perhaps 
you call DeFoe a liar, and John Bunyan, and Cervantes, and 
Walter Scott, and Dickens : they are novelists : authors of 
fiction : so am I ! All my stories are fiction, and, as the 
great authors I have named did not expect to be understood 
as writing actual facts, I am so much better than they that 
I want to be believed, and so I confine myself to what might 
be true but is not." 



THE GREAT EXAGGERATOR. 155 

By this time we had reached Fourth Street, and the great 
exaggerator was obliged to leave the car, as his factory was 
located there, and I saw him no more. But I have since 
seen and heard, and read, many in the same line of business, 
whose habit of exaggeration is quite as large and fearful as 
this newspaper-man's. 

Some of them are preachers. They cannot make a simple 
statement of truth, in language that everybody can under- 
stand, and in terms that commend themselves to the hearty 
confidence of the hearer. But they pile up the agony, with 
all their might, making terrible more terrible, and lovely so 
ineffably sweet that neither one nor the other is credible. 
In revivalists, and travelled speakers, and the sensational 
men generally, I observe this same habit in full flow. All 
their geese are swans. All their good people are angels. 
Even their reports of work done, souls saved, and reforma- 
tions accomplished, are not in strict accordance with the 
facts. 

Sitting on a platform last week at an anniversary meeting, 
while a speaker was careering splendidly along the brilliant 
line of his rhetoric, with a pyrotechnic display of facts and 
figures glorious if true, and he believed them so, a friend 
near by whispered to me : 

" I wonder if he wouldn't discount that fifty per cent for 
cash !" 

My friend was in the commercial line evidently, and 
intended to ask me if it would not be safe to take off fifty 
per cent, or one half of that, for the sake of sober truth — the 
cash. 

Writers as well as public speakers draw the long bow. 
Even in the serious business of delineating the character of 
a departed friend, some persons have been known to indulge 
in eulogy justly liable to the suspicion of being somewhat 
overdrawn. 

Women are not wholly exempt from this tendency to 
hyperbole. As a mouse is to them often more terrible than 
a lion, so they magnify trifles into mountains and hug their 
delusions as positive realities. Men and women indulge in 



156 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

this habit of exaggeration until they come to believe what 
they say, and thus are victims of their own folly and sin. 
When charged with misrepresentation, they defend their bad 
habit and resent the suspicion of falsehood as an insult. 
Even when convinced of their fault they fall into it in their 
confession, and repeat themselves, as did the minister whose 
brethren rebuked him for his habit of exaggeration, and 
filled with shame and repentance, he cried, "Yes, brethren, 
I know my fault. I have tried to correct it ; I have shed 
barrels of tears over it." 

It is no excuse for this or any other bad habit to say of the 
offender, " It is his way." No man has a right to continue 
in a bad way. It is his duty, when the wrong is shown him, 
to repent and reform. It is just as wicked to be an exag- 
gerator in the pulpit, on the platform, at the dinner table, 
as in writing for the sensational newspaper on the rats of 
Brazil or the cockroaches of Japan. 

Dean Stanley intimated, when he was among us, that the 
authors of America have the reputation abroad of being 
given to exaggeration. I do not think the habit is Ameri- 
can. It would be quite as easy to find examples of it in 
British authors, and French and German, for it is a fault of 
human nature that it is never content with things as they 
are, and always is prone to make molehills into mountains. 
" A plain, unvarnished tale" is more forcible and useful than 
the inflated style which often passes for eloquence. 

And so I have been taught by my companion in the car 
to despise the exaggerator. When I hear him in the pulpit 
or out of it, I ask myself if he would not take oft' fifty per 
cent for cash. 



V/HEN IT RAINS, LET IT RAIN, 157 

WHEN IT RAINS, LET IT RAIN. 

My father was one of the rural clergy : a country pastor. 
It was his habit when he went from home to exchange 
pulpits with a distant brother, or to attend Synod, to take 
with him a few sermons. For them he had a pasteboard 
case, into which they would slide, and travel without being 
folded. On one side of this case he had written in a bold 
hand a Latin motto, of which I may write to you hereafter, 
and on the other side these words . " When it rains, let 

it RAIN." 

Long before I knew what they were intended to teach, I 
spelled them out, and wondered what difference it made 
whether he let it rain or not : it was not likely that it would 
rain more or less because he had a will about it. But as I 
grew older, and perhaps a little wiser, I began to see the 
meaning and the value of the motto, and to lay it up in my 
heart and to practise it in my life. I soon found, also, that 
ministers have special need of the virtue it teaches in the 
matter of rainy Sundays. They make preparation for the 
pulpit, with much care, labor and hope. They have a special 
object perhaps in view, and are very anxious to see all their 
people in their places when they come with this message 
from the mouth of God. They rise on the Sabbath morning, 
and lo ! the rain is descending, the floods are coming, and it 
is certain there will be more pews than people in church. 
What shall he do ? The sermon is not for those who will 
turn out in the rain, so much as it is for those who will cer- 
tainly stay at home. He is tempted to fret at the weather. 
The discontented missionary to Nineveh, when there was 
too much sun, exclaimed, " I do well to be angry," and the 
country pa"stor is ready to be angry because it rains. 

Then comes up the much-argued question, " Shall I preach 
my sermon prepared for to-day, rain or shine, people or no 
people, or shall I take an old one, or preach an off-hand dis- 
course: on the principle that anything will do for a rainy 
day ?" The wise pastor has no invariable rule on the sub- 
ject. Sometimes he does the one thing, and again he does 



IS 8 I RE N^ US LETTERS, 

the other, according to circumstances. And those of his 
people who go to church in all weathers say, " Our minis- 
ter preaches his best sermons on rainy Sundays." They do 
not know the secret of it, which is that they who have the 
heart to brave a storm, and go to the house of God, are sure 
to find its word and ordinances sweet to their taste, yea, 
sweeter than the honeycomb. Like wine on the lees well 
refined, it rejoices the heart. 

When Dean Swift's congregation was so small as to include 
only the sexton and himself, he began the service, instead of 
" Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth," etc., by 
saying, " Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture," etc. The 
Dean was not a very serious preacher, and with him this was 
a pleasantry. But many a preacher, whose audience was 
nearly as few as his, has preached with power and great 
effect, to the glory of God. The jailer was the only hearer 
when the gospel made him cry out, " What shall I do ?" 
The Great Teacher himself was willing to teach one at a 
time. And the minister who dismisses all thought about 
numbers, and just goes onward preaching the Word to many 
or to few, trusting in God to make it effectual to accomplish 
that whereunto it is sent, will, in the end, do the best work 
for the Master. 

My father faithfully acted upon this principle, and always 
let it rain without worrying himself about it. He never 
stopped for a storm. He said it was no part of his business 
to bring the people out when it rained, but he would do his 
whole duty in the pulpit, and they who heard and they who 
did not would have their respective accounts to render. 
This was the quiet conviction of a strong, brave man, who 
did not undertake to regulate the weather or to manage the 
affairs of the universe. He was content to do his duty, and 
he just did it. 

The rule is as good for the people as it is for the pastor, 
and quite as good in all the affairs of this life of ours as it is 
on Sunday. How often even good people say: "I'm so 
sorry it rains to-day : I would rather have it rain all the 
week than on Sunday." But that rain which shuts them in 



WHEN IT RAINS, LET IT RAIN. 159 

the house on the Sabbath, and deprives them of the means 
of grace in the sanctuary, would not hinder them from going 
to their daily business or to a kettledrum. 

Nor is it the weather only that worries the souls of dis- 
contented people. They are never pleased with things as 
they are, and would like to have the ordering of events in 
their own hands. But if they had, they would then com- 
plain of having so much to do, they have no time for rest. 
And it is altogether likely if they had the management of 
the weather, and everything else, they would not have it any 
more to their minds than it is now when Infinite wisdom 
directs it for the greatest good of the greatest number. It 
is a fact that they who fret the most about the little troubles 
and vexations of every-day life are they who have the least 
faculty for making things go better. Real executive ability 
and force belong to persons of a calm, equable and steady 
mind. Such people take things as they come: if it rains 
they let it, and, with umbrella and rubbers, go about the 
work that is to be done ; if company comes unexpectedly to 
dinner, they give them the best they have, and with the 
sauce of cheerfulness make a dinner of herbs more enjoy- 
able than a stalled ox ; if the china falls they smile at the 
last remark as if they did not hear the awful crash ; or when 
the market falls, and real estate and fancy stocks, and the 
price of corn, go rushing amain down, they possess their 
souls in patience, saying it will all come around right, by and 
by : when it rains, let it rain. 

This spirit of acquiescence in the divine will is in har- 
mony with the use of all right means to produce such results 
as our judgment approves. But it also forbids impatience, 
grumbling, fretfulness, the sulks, despondency ; and it re- 
quires us in all things, even in the smallest, to say with reve- 
rence and childlike submission, " Not my will, but Thine be 
done." 



160 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT: 

HIS RELIGIOUS VIEWS AND THE REV. DR. ALDEN'S THOUGHTS 
ON THE " RELIGIOUS LIFE." 

New and beautiful light has been shed on the inner life and 
thought of our late illustrious poet and friend, Mr. Bryant. 

This is the lovely, leafy month of June, the month in which 
he wished to die and be buried. His wish was granted. It 
is now just a year since we buried him by the side of her 
whom he loved in youth and old age. It is natural, and it is 
well, to think of him at such a time as this. 

And it is the sweetest of all pleasures, in connection with 
his memory, to think of him as one who trusted with child- 
like faith in the work and worth of Jesus Christ for salvation, 
and having entered into rest through that living way, is now 
a partaker of the promises. 

The Rev. Dr. Joseph Alden, President of the Normal Col- 
lege, Albany, enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Bryant, and when 
he had prepared a brief, but very clear and evangelical treatise 
on " The Religious Life," he submitted the manuscript to Mr. 
Bryant, and requested him to write a few pages by way of 
introduction. This request was cheerfully complied with, 
and it is a remarkable fact that these few pages, written just 
at the close of his long life, and left unfinished on his desk 
when death suddenly summoned him, contain a more distinct 
and satisfactory declaration of his religious opinions than he 
has given elsewhere in the thousands of pages that flowed 
from his prolific mind. 

It was not new to me that Mr. Bryant held tenderly and 
truly to that view of the atoning work of Christ which is 
inconsistent with the Unitarian idea of the person and office 
of the Saviour. When in Italy twenty-five years ago I learned 
the circumstances under which Mr. Bryant came to partake 
of the Lord's Supper with her by whose side his mortal now 
sleeps waiting the resurrection. They were in Naples with 
an invalid lady friend, who was visited in her illness by 
the chaplain of the Scotch Presbyterian church. It was sup- 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 161 

posed that her death was near, and as she had expressed a 
desire to receive the Holy Communion, the pastor made an 
appointment for its administration. In the meantime Mrs. 
Bryant informed her husband of the expected service, and 
asked him if he would be pleased to participate with them. 
He said that he would be very glad to do so if the pastor 
thought it proper, and for this purpose he conversed fully as 
to his views and feelings with the Presbyterian minister, who 
encouraged him to unite with the family in this touching 
memorial. Mr. Bryant did so, and on his return from Europe, 
being a regular attendant at the Presbyterian church at 
Roslyn, where he and Mrs. B. are buried, he came regularly 
and devoutly to the Lord's table, though he never removed 
his membership from the Unitarian church of which Dr. Bel- 
lows is pastor. Dr. Ely, the Roslyn minister, was a college 
friend of mine, and being intimate with Mr. Bryant, often 
related to me his conversations, with the assurance that Mr. 
Bryant was a humble and sincere believer in the evangelical 
sysl em. 

Dr. Alden's little book is a vigorous assertion of the true 
idea of a religious life, the way to it, by repentance and faith. 
The author shows faith to be something more than believing 
that Christ died for sinners, and he explains that "one has 
faith in Christ when he trusts him as his personal Saviour." 
He teaches, also, that " the influence of the Holy Spirit is ne- 
cessary to the exercise of repentance and faith." And again, he 
says " if a man seeks to conform his whole life to the Divine 
will, looking to God for help, and relying on the merits of 
that Christ as the ground of his acceptance with God, he has a 
right to regard himself as a converted man." These are the 
opening sentiments of a brief work on the religious life, the 
life of God in the soul of man, the indwelling of the Spirit 
bringing to the surface and producing the fruits of holy obe- 
dience to the law of God. It would be well for the Church, 
well for individuals, for each private Christian, to get this book 
and make its practical principles a part of daily experience. 

But how did Mr. Bryant take it ? He read it in manu- 
script ; and he very carefully says that, as to those sentiments 



1 62 IRENjEUS LETTERS, 

in the book about which there may be " a divergence of views 
among Christian denominations," he will not express an 
opinion. And he adds ; " But I can only regret that there 
should be any who have disowned the humble and simple 
faith which, carried out into the daily acts of life, produces 
results so desirable, so important to the welfare of mankind 
in the present state of existence, and so essential to a prepa- 
ration for the life upon which we are to enter when we pass 
beyond the grave." Then this great poet, philanthropist and 
philosopher laments the tendency of modern scientists to 
turn away the attention of men from the teachings of the 
gospel, and to look with scorn upon the Christian system. 

Now I am about to copy a passage which, in the value of 
its testimony, in the beauty of its expression, and its evangel- 
ical spirit, was never excelled in the same number of lines by 
any uninspired man : 

"This character, of which Christ was the perfect model, is in itself so 
attractive, so ' altogether lovely,' that I cannot describe in language the 
admiration with which I regard it ; nor can I express the gratitude I feel for 
the dispensation which bestowed that example on mankind, for the truths 
which he taught and the sufferings he endured for our sakes. I tremble to 
think what the world would be without Him. Take away the blessing of 
the advent of his life and the blessings purchased by his death, in what an 
abyss of guilt would man have been left ! It would seem to be blotting the 
sun out of the heavens — to leave our system of worlds in chaos, frost, and 
darkness. 

11 In my view of the life, the teachings, the labors, and the sufferings of 
the blessed Jesus, there can be no admiration too profound, no love of which 
the human heart is capable too warm, no gratitude too earnest and deep 
of which He is justly the object. It is with sorrow that my love for Him is 
so cold, and my gratitude so inadequate. It is with sorrow that I see any 
attempt to put aside His teachings as a delusion, to turn men's eyes from his 
example, to meet with doubt and denial the story of his life. For my part, 
if I thought that the religion of skepticism were to gather strength and pre- 
vail and become the dominant view of mankind, I should despair of the fate 
of mankind in the years that are yet to come." 

I have read that passage over and over again with ever- 
increasing admiration and gratitude : my mind consents to 
bis acknowledgment of human guilt, its need of pardon, of 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 163 

the sufferings and death of Christ "endured for our sakes," 
"purchasing" the blessings without which we would have 
been left in an abyss of darkness. And my eyes fill with 
tears of sympathy when I hear Bryant saying, " It is with 
sorrow that my love for Him is so cold, and my gratitude so 
inadequate." 

To the wall of my library, in which I am writing, I lookup 
and see the portrait of Bryant, serene, sublime, in its thought- 
ful, penetrating gaze into the future. It is as if taken while 
he was composing the lines which I have just quoted from 
his pen. Underneath it hangs, framed, a note he wrote to 
me, with the gift of a poem that he copied, at great length, 
for me with his own hand when he was 80 years old. He 
seems very near, when I see him in the light of his beautiful 
life, his trustful faith in Christ as his only Saviour, and his 
earnest expectation of immortality. 

It is good to bear in mind that outside of the blessed con- 
gregation who are called by the name we bear, there are mul- 
titudes innumerable whom Christ knows as his and loves 
with dying and undying affection. The system of religion 
on which Unitarianism exists as a Church, and the system of 
Romanism, appear to me utterly incompatible with the 
Christian religion as Bryant explains it, as Keble and New- 
man sang it in their spiritual songs. But in the mazes of 
error in which even devout minds are sometimes involved, 
there are members of the body of Christ, of Christ's Church, 
and whoever anywhere, and under whatever system, bewild- 
ered, oppressed, or rejoicing, feels himself to be a sinner par- 
doned and saved by the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, 
that man, though he were the Pope of Rome or the thief on 
the cross, I love to call my brother and a member of the 
Church of Christ, 



1 64 IRE N^, US LETTERS. 



WARRIORS ON WAR. 

While I am writing this letter a funeral pageant is passing 
in sight from my study window. In the Governor's Room in 
the City Hall the dead body of Major-General Hooker has 
been lying in state. Crowds have been going in to look on 
the face of the soldier as he lies — 

A warrior taking his rest, 
With his martial cloak around him. 

Now they are bringing the coffin down the steps. The 
procession forms. Banners are draped, and droop in honor 
of the dead. The pageant passes on. Five minutes ago the 
Park was thronged. It is deserted now. Dust to dust. 

In August last I spent a Sabbath among the White 
Mountains, at the Profile House, with Gen. Hooker. He 
spoke to me of his mother, of her fondness for the 
New York Observer, and of the religious instruction she gave 
him, and he was not able to say that he had lived up to the 
lessons of his childhood. 

" But the truth is," he said, " a man cannot be good, and 
be a fighting man. He must have the devil in him. To 
kill one another, men must have their blood up, and then 

they are just like devils. Now there's General ," naming 

one of the generals of the last war, " he is too good a man to 
command an army : when two armies come in collision, he 
is afraid somebody will get hurt : he can't bear to have blood 
shed : he's a good man, very good, everybody loves him, but 
he has not enough of the devil to be a good general." 

I sought to take another view of the subject, and argued 
that many splendid generals had been men of high moral 
and religious character, who pursued the profession of arms 
as a duty to their country, regarding war as a necessary evil, 
and the last resort of government. 

" Very true," he said, "but when it comes to fighting, all 
the devil that is in a man must come out." 

And then the conversation took a turn for the better. He 



WARRIORS ON WAR. 165 

had been listening to one of the discussions for which the 
piazza of the Profile House is famous. Every day, Sundays 
not excepted, a group of lawyers, clergymen, statesmen, and 
men of business, get into a war of words on some question 
of ethics, science, or politics, the first remark made by any 
one being challenged, defended or argued, until the whole 
company is by the ears. On this Sunday afternoon some of 
us wished to keep the debate on a Sabbath day track, and the 
morning sermon by Dr. Bridgman furnished the topic. 
Some one made an observation on the folly of prayer, which 
was like a red flag before a bull, and we of the orthodox 
persuasion rushed into the arena, ready to do battle for the 
truth against all comers. It was to this discussion Gen. 
Hooker had been listening in silence, sitting out of the circle, 
unnoticed by the company. He was infirm, his tongue 
unready for service, but his mind was clear and his hearing 
perfect. He said to me the next morning: 

" You carried too many guns for those fellows yesterday. 
I never listened to a conversation in my life with so much 
interest : but you had the advantage in being at home on 
the subject, while the other side were all at sea." 

This gave me an opening to say a word or two to the Gen- 
eral, not as pointed, perhaps, as they would have been had I 
known they were the last between us. But they were. We 
parted at Bethlehem, and I did not see him again. 

As they are bringing his body down the stone steps of the 
City Hall to bear him to the house of God, and thence to 
his sepulchre in the West, I remember his words with a 
shuddering distinctness, and I ask myself if it be indeed true 
that a man must have the devil in him to be a great captain 
and a good soldier. 

Well, I do not believe it. I could fill this sheet with the 
names and story of illustrious generals, whose gentleness and 
firmness, genius and success were never associated with the 
fierce, fiery, dare-devil ferocity which Gen. Hooker regarded as 
an essential element of the great military man. The brilliant, 
dashing, impetuous chieftain rarely, if ever, is also the sub- 
lime, self-contained commander who organizes campaigns 



1 66 IRE AT A? US LETTERS. 

and decisive battles. Seldom, indeed, are all the elements 
of the true soldier blended as they were in our Washington, 
or in the British Wellington. Perhaps Alexander or Caesar, 
or Napoleon, was a more splendid general than either of 
them. But the last three were selfish and ambitious: the 
first two were simply patriots, and having served and saved 
their country, laid down their arms without a stain on their 
names. The devil had much to do with the three, very little 
with the two. 

War is an awful evil, almost always a gigantic crime. It 
may be necessary as the last resort for the preservation of 
national life, when the madness or the folly of an enemy 
requires his destruction. To maintain government, the 
enemies of it — as every law-breaker is its enemy — must be 
restrained or punished : and so the army is the nation's 
police, essential while bad men live to plot and murder. 

But it is high time that Christian nations, like Great Bri- 
tain and the United States, pursued the arts of peace, and so 
lived with the barbarous peoples near them, or far off, as to 
avoid the horrors of war. It is not true that we or the 
British people are guiltless before God for the blood that is 
shed in reducing savage or semi-civilized peoples to submis- 
sion. If the lust of territory or gold inspired the aggression 
that provoked resistance, and thus precipitated conflict, 
when inquisition for blood is made it will be required at the 
hands of those who kindled the fire. 

In all my reading of history and biography, ancient or 
modern, I have read nothing more awful than the battle 
scenes when the Russians were first beaten by the Turks in 
1877; and the storming of Badajoz by the British in 1812. 
Yet the history of the human race is a long register of such 
lurid and frightful scenes. Gen. Hooker was right when he 
said that the devil is the chief instigator of war. Hell must, 
be the only place in the universe where such scenes give 
delight. 

It is vain, perhaps, to indulge the fond hope that the day 
is near when nations will settle their disputes by reason 
and law. Yet the international conferences, freedom of 



THOU OF LITTLE FAITH. 167 

commerce, frequent intercourse, advanced intelligence, and 
the power of the gospel, — not the least though named last, 
— are doing a work that must gradually make war more 
difficult among civilized, commercial and Christian peoples. 
We may hope in God that the future is not a far future when 
the nations will learn war no more. 

Gen. Hooker's funeral pageant brings to mind the various 
meetings I have had with him, and among others one of the 
most enjoyable dinners. A dozen guests were at table, of 
whom all were military men except myself. In the midst of 
animated conversation one of the generals let slip an oath ; 
when our host, by way of apology, said to me very dis- 
tinctly : 

" You are probably not accustomed to that at table." 

* No," I replied, " but I see the great necessity of my 
being here!' 

This was received with a hearty laugh, and during three or 
four hours that followed, there was no more of that. 

If there be any defence for war, there is no possible 
apology for profane swearing. It is said to be a military 
habit, more common in the army — not in Flanders only, but 
in every army — than elsewhere. Yet it has less excuse than 
almost any other vice, and no vice has any. 



O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH ! 

One of my friends is in a bad way. Once he was poor ; 
now he is above the fear of want. When he was so poor 
that life was a daily struggle to live; when those depending 
on him for bread would be left destitute were his health to 
fail, then his soul was calm and joyful in the God of his 
strength, for his faith was like a mountain, and his peace like 
a river. His faith did not hinder his works, but with the 
firm persuasion that God helps those who help themselves, 
he wrought out success, and is now Well-to-do in the world. 

And here comes the mystery of his experience : he has not 



1 68 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

the same faith in God that he had when he had nothing else ! 
When he had no money he had faith : with the increase of 
wealth he lost his childlike trust in God. He does not enjoy 
the comforts of religion as he did when the cares and anxieties 
of unsuccessful business might have worried him night and 
day but for the grace that gave him comfort. He simply 
verified the promise of strength according to his day. 

One night, on the Mediterranean, the ship was supposed 
to be in great peril. The Italian captain and all hands, hav- 
ing lashed everything fast that had not been swept overboard 
by the waves and tempest, betook themselves to prayer. It 
was a long agony with the storm. Darkness made the 
scene more terrible and increased the hazards of the night. 
It was evident enough that there was no help in man. In 
that supreme hour the principle of faith had its perfect work, 
as it does not in fair weather and smooth water. Not faith 
in the strength of the vessel or the skill of its master, but 
faith in the wisdom and goodness of God, who will do what 
is best, so that life or death will be the highest good and 
most to be desired. That gives peace to a troubled soul, 
and the excitement of such an hour sometimes rouses the 
mind into a state of almost joy. This is the fulfilment of 
the promise, "My grace is sufficient for thee" — not to remove 
the trouble or danger, but to give courage and comfort in the 
hour of peril. 

How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom ; they hinder in these two ways : men trust in them 
and so forget God, and men are troubled about them lest 
they lose what they have, and thus are turned away from 
God. This is one, and the chief reason why the soul often 
prospers more in the pursuit of wealth than in the possession 
of it. Every sensible Christian knows that except the Lord 
build the house the workmen labor in vain : unless God pros- 
per our industry and skill,our diligence in business will be of 
no avail, and so, if we are wise and true, we cast ourselves, 
with childlike confidence, on the arm of the Almighty and 
work with a will, knowing that it is not of him that willeth 
or runneth, but God who giveth the increase. The sovereign 



6 TtiOU OF LITTLE PAITH. 169 

will, wisdom, power and love of God are as truly to be felt 
and seen in the success or failure of one's business, as in the 
matter of his life and health. Yet there are many Christians 
who kiss the rod when a lovely child is removed by death, 
but will not recognize a Father's hand in the loss of all their 
worldly goods. In making money, a good man may ear- 
nestly and sincerely seek God's blessing on the labor of his 
hands, but when the money has come, he is in great danger 
of saying to himself, "Soul take thine ease, God has done all 
you asked him to do, and you need not be anxious any 
longer." 

The boy had this spirit in him who said his prayers always 
on going to bed, but never in the morning, giving as his 
reason for this neglect, that a smart boy could take care of 
himself in the day-time. 

On the pendant leaf of a text-book before me is this 
passage : " For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, 
therewith to be content." And the soul that, like a bird 
away from its nest, is uneasy until it finds its young and its 
home, has as hard work to be content w r ith riches as with- 
out. Money does not touch the spot where religion lives in 
the human breast. The heart of the poor man and the heart 
of the rich are alike open to the grace of God, both have 
their own temptations and difficulties : it is a question, 
" Which is the more exposed to the assaults of evil," "which 
is the more congenial to the life of God ?" So Agur rea- 
soned, and so he prayed that neither the one nor the other 
might be his lot. If we had our choice of the three estates, 
— nothing, something, or everything — I reckon we would all 
take the last and run the risk of being hurt by having too 
much of a good thing. But the compensations of God's 
providence are wonderful. As a blind man has his sense of 
feeling exquisitely refined, so that it becomes the inlet of 
pleasure and a means of usefulness unknown in the day when 
the light of heaven shone upon him, so the man who has lost 
his property by the depression of trade and the shrinkage of 
values, may have his heart enlarged, his faith in God tried 
and purified, his joy increased a hundred-fold by reason of 



170 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

the rich communications of the Spirit such as were never his 
in the days when corn and wine were increased. 

Even so, and more marvellous, is the experience of the 
Christian who grows heavenward as he lays up treasures on 
earth. It is possible so to do. There is a high and holy 
sense in which it is sinful and dangerous to hoard money. 
It is always sinful to be miserly. Wealth is a power for 
good, and therefore may be sought, and, when obtained, may 
be a help to the highest kind of usefulness and happiness. 
It is blessed to give. Money answereth all things, And in 
the right use of wealth the good man gets the heart-glow the 
poor never feel. 

And so it comes to pass that the higher life of man on 
earth, the true living above the world while living in it, may 
be enjoyed when a man has no money, when he is making 
money, and when he has become a man of wealth. As the 
furnace of adversity may purify the Christian, he may grow 
in grace while tried by poverty, or disappointment and failure 
in business. In the storm his faith may be tried and greatly 
strengthened. In the mount of prosperity, his soul filled 
with gratitude and the spirit of self-consecration, he may 
exult in God, from whom cometh every good gift. 

In all circumstances, conditions, and changes, faith in God 
brings contentment and peace. It is not of him that willeth, 
but of God who giveth ; and to them who trust in him and 
do his will He gives all needful things. Good when He gives 
and good when He withholds, blessed be His name forever- 
more. 



TWO PICTURES: IDEAL, BUT REAL. 

I. 

In the morning of her career she made choice of the life 
that now is. 

She shut her eyes upon the glories of the better land where 
are pleasures forevermore. In the domestic circle, of which 



TWO PICTURES: IDEAL, BUT REAL. 171 

she should have been the light and joy, her wilfulness, sel- 
fishness and impatience of parental authority and counsel 
made her a living anxiety and grief to parents and friends 
who would have won her to their hearts by the love she put 
away. In school she despised knowledge, counted every loss 
of time and chance of improvement a decided gain, and 
gloried in freedom from wholesome restraints : that liberty 
which to her seemed the essence of enjoyment, but which is 
the door of licentiousness and shame. She was now in the 
bloom of youthful beauty, gifted with graces of form and fea- 
ture to win the admiration of the world. And forth she went, 
the gayest of the gay, and rushed into life to quaff its nectar 
and revel amidst its sweets and flowers. 

A few brief years after, and a good man met her on the 
streets of a great city, a lost thing, outcast, homeless, blasted, 
ruined, all but damned. She knew him, a friend of other 
days, but no trace of her former self was there and she was 
strange to him. She told him the story of her gay, wild, 
joyous, reckless, sinful, wretched, downward career, and then 
begged for a pittance with which to buy the drink that should 
first madden and then stupefy, anything to quiet the cries of 
memory that rung in the ear of her frantic soul. It was in 
vain he pointed to the door of escape from the doom to 
which she was hastening. She spurned his proffered kind- 
ness, and told him that all she wanted of life was to be rid of 
it, and the greatest good for her was to die. He gave her 
money, and in an hour she was senseless. She woke but to 
repeat the scene. Lost to all feeling of shame, without 
conscience or hope, she sank from one dark depth of woe 
and crime to another, till she was found at last a bloated, 
diseased, disfigured, loathsome corpse, exposed for awhile in 
the Morgue, but no friend appeared to reclaim the disgust- 
ing remains that were hurried away to the charnel-house 
and hid out of sight in a pauper's grave. 

And is that the end ? Would God it were ! But this 
life of ours is an endless life. And who is bold enough to 
lift the veil and watch the career of that fallen angel into 
the realms of lost souls ? Who shall report the sorrows and 



172 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

the shame of one who beholds afar off the blessedness of 
the good, while she reaps the fruit of her own doings, and 
forever, as she contemplates her eternal loss, exclaims in 
those saddest of all sad words, "// might have been." "I 
might have been pure, and holy, and wise, and useful and 
happy! I might have been like an angel among the angels, 
washed in the blood of the Lamb, amid the seraphs who 
continually do cry, ' Holy, holy, holy :' but I am here, a 
wicked, miserable thing ; and the gulf between me and them 
is impassable. My forever is begun. This is my endless 
life." 

II. 

Another vision rises. 

She was the sunlight of the home where parental kindness 
and filial love anticipated heaven. Endowed of God with 
fair powers of mind, she gave the spring-time of life to pre- 
paration for the future. Her soul was united by faith in 
Christ to the Infinite Father ; loving God in the person of 
his Son, and in all the manifestations of himself in his w r orks 
and w r ord, she was in union also with all that is lovely in 
the world around her. She stored her mind with useful 
knowledge : trained her spirit to obedience by patient 
acceptance of every duty : bearing with cheerfulness the 
burdens laid upon her. Within her own spirit, silently and 
alone, she fought a great fight with self ; with passion and 
pride, and love of ease and pleasure : pleasures falsely so 
called, the foam on the deep sea of life : the frivolous amuse- 
ments well enough for the pastime of an hour to recreate 
the wearied soul, but miserable as a purpose and end. Life 
to her was serious : life was earnest. She would be and do 
for others, and so become like Him who loved us and gave 
himself for us. The refined, cultured, Christian woman, the 
noble wife and mother, she took her place in the sphere 
which Providence assigned her ; doing, day by day, what her 
hands found to do ; lightening the burdens of others, minis- 
tering to their wants with unfaltering care ; shedding, as from 
angels' wings, the fragrance of her worth on every path she 



TEN DAYS ON THE SHIP. 1 73 

trod, winning all hearts by ways and words of gentleness and 
grace. The almighty power of love was wielded by her fair 
hands. God is love, and she dwelt in God, and by him sub- 
dued all things unto herself. Sorrows gathered round her 
and covered her as with a cloud. But the face of Him who 
walked in the furnace with his children, illumined the cloud, 
and out of it came a voice saying, " Fear not, for I have 
redeemed thee." Her power reached the springs of effort in 
every department of useful Christian work, and by her 
agency the ignorant were taught, the poor were fed and 
clothed, the sick were healed, the sad were comforted, and 
this bright beautiful world was made more bright, more 
beautiful, by her being in it. 

To those who knew her, she never gave a pang until she 
came to die, and then they sorrowed only that earth was to 
lose what heaven stooped to take. Angels had waited long 
to have their own, and hovered on willing wings, above her 
couch, to bear her to their home on high. 

Hark, they whisper ! angels say- 
Sister Spirit, come away. 

With cheerful voice and smiling face she answered, 

" Lend, lend your wings 
I mount, I fly," 

and passed within the veil. * * * 



TEN DAYS ON THE SHIR 

And here's a hand for you from beyond the sea ! 

A floating hospital, a floating hotel, a little world in a bark 
on the ocean ! We had not been out a day before three of 
every four—yes, five out of every six — were sick, down sick, 
miserably sick, and helpless, too. There is no remedy known 
to man that cures this dreadful malady. We were very 



174 IRENES. US LETTERS. 

closely packed at dinner ; the crowd so great that each inch at 
the table was measured, and we were put as close as sardines, 
or pickles in the Reckhow jars. But when next morning 
came, the long rows of empty benches told the sad story of 
sorrow on the sea. As in wisdom's path, there was only " here 
and there a traveller/' And he who was there had a look of 
stern defiance on his brow, or of woe-begone-ness, that be- 
spoke the coming storm. There is no rank so high, no 
digestion so strong, no will so stubborn, but it may have to 
yield to this foul despot of the sea. A few men, with no 
bowels of pity, are exempt, and, true to their nature, they 
have no compassion on their wretched neighbors. They insist 
that it is all in your disposition ; just brace up and not mind 
it; stir about; keep moving and it will all pass over. It 
does pass over the side of the ship. And you may be ready 
to pass over also, but these strong-minded sea-dogs laugh at 
the calamities of their best friends, and are proud and happy 
in inverse proportion to the misery of others. 

When I was abroad, ten years ago, a man from our country 
was getting up a company to supply ships with a chair of his 
invention, in which whoever sat should be free from this 
internal disorder. It was to be screwed into the floor of the 
deck, and the passenger was to be strapped into the chair, 
and the theory of the thing was that the man would partake 
of the motion of the ship, and being part and parcel of it, 
would not be disturbed. The inventor would have earned a 
seat in the Department of the Interior, had his invention 
proved to be what he promised. But these ten years have 
rolled by, and ships roll, and the seas roll, and men who go 
down to the sea in ships are as sick of the sea as before, and 
no chairs are yet made in which the wayfaring man may sit 
and say, " I shall take mine ease." In the dead of night, 
above the roar of the billows and the rattle and thumping of 
the engines, breaks on the ear of the wakeful passenger the 
groan and the retch of some poor body in her agony, and 
when the morning comes a concert of voices celebrates the 
sufferings of those who have waked only to renew their 
misery. 






TEN DAYS ON THE SHIP. 175 

Yet to most travellers all this is transitory, " The darkest 
day, live till to-morrow, will have passed away." The ship 
that was a floating hospital becomes a great hotel, a house of 
entertainment, and the amount of eating and drinking done 
is something fearful ! The appetite is sharpened by the 
strong, salt air. High health follows the brief illness. The 
system, thoroughly renovated by the strange process, comes 
up with a bound, and the man who was yesterday as limp as 
a rag, has the maw of a tiger, and comes to dinner as to his 
prey after a famine. It is dinner all day. He eats at nine 
in the morning, and calls it breakfast ; at twelve he lunches, 
but he dines heartily at the same time ; at four the regula- 
tion dinner comes on, and he attacks it as if famished and 
afraid that the larder would give out; at six he takes tea 
and many other things ; and at eight, nine, ten, and so on, 
he takes his supper, the heartiest meal in the day, for now 
he has no prospect of another until breakfast, and he must 
live through the night some way. And so he eats to live 
and lives to eat. Eating is the grand thing to do. There 
are other entertainments : he may play shuffleboard on the 
deck, and cards in the cabin ; see the sailors at blind-man's- 
buff, and at bear ; get up a concert in the steerage, and kill 
time in many ways known only to those who are accustomed 
to " life on the ocean wave ;" but after all there is nothing 
for him that takes the place of eating, and when he goes 
through five meals a day of twelve hours, there is little time 
left for anything else, especially if he tarries long at the wine, 
as the manner of some is. 

SABBATH AT SEA. 

The Scythia left port on Wednesday, and by the Sunday 
following, the ship's company, some five hundred souls in 
all, were in good health, and welcomed a bright Sabbath 
morning in May. Notices were posted that divine service 
would be held in the main saloon, and as several ministers 
of the gospel were on board it was reasonable to expect that 
we would have preaching. But the Cunard line belongs to 
the Established Church of England. And it is one of the 



176 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

peculiarities of the religion of that venerable Church, that a 
sea captain who is no saint, and it may be is quite the reverse, 
may conduct divine service, pronounce the absolution, which 
is specially a ministerial office, and the benediction also — 
the Apostolic benediction! I have preached the gospel on a 
Cunarder, after the Episcopal service was read ; and any one 
of the clergymen on board would have been happy to do so 
on this occasion, had we been requested by the captain, who 
is also the chaplain of his own ship. But he chose to keep 
the thing in his own hands, and to do the religious as well as 
the nautical service of the vessel. And he did it very well. 
At the hour appointed^ a few passengers assembled, perhaps 
a fourth part of them, not more; a dozen seamen filed in, 
and took their seats, — for this service is designed for the 
crew, not for the passengers ; the captain sat in a chair, and, 
neither rising nor kneeling, he read the lessons, prayers, &c, 
for the day, including petitions for the Queen of England, 
the President of the United States, Prince Albert, and all 
the Royal household. He is a good reader. I have heard 
many clergymen read much worse. Indeed, it is rare to hear 
the service read so well. Good reading is less common than 
good speaking. But there is such a sense of incongruity in 
a sea captain's leading the devotions of a public assembly 
when there are ministers present whose duty it is to preach 
the Word, that one is indisposed to profit. It requires an 
effort to be reconciled to the situation. 

After service, which was very short, the passengers spent 
their Sunday as to each one seemed good in his own eyes. 
Whether there are any rules and regulations for the observ- 
ance of the day, I do not know ; but it was pleasant to 
observe that many things regarded lawful and proper on 
other days, were laid aside by common consent, and the 
hours passed by as in a well-regulated Christian household. 
No cards were played in the saloons. Indeed, all games and 
pastimes were omitted, and reading, conversation, walking, 
and talking, whiled away the hours. Perhaps the dinner 
was rather extra. In the evening some of the company 
'^Dined in singing sacred songs, old familiar hymns and tunes, 



TEN DAYS ON THE SHIP, 177 

and some of the popular revival melodies were welcomed 
with great favor, showing how deep a hold they have on the 
universal heart. 

And this ship is a little world, a floating world. As the 
great globe is but a speck in the ocean of infinity, and floats 
in the hand of Him who made it, with its endless variety of 
life and interest and destiny, so this ship, a mere dot on the 
great ocean, tossed like an egg-shell on the waves that would 
not be parted for a minute if the whole vessel were to go 
down into the fathomless chambers below, is a world in 
miniature, with a countless variety of hope and business and 
purpose and everlasting destiny. There is scarcely a rank or 
condition of men that has not its representative within these 
wooden walls. There are sixty nurses and children on board. 
And it doth not yet appear what they shall be. The British 
Minister is on his way from Washington to report to Her 
Majesty, his sovereign. Several newly-married pairs are out 
on their first voyage, life all before them. The great majority 
are men of business seeking the pot of gold at the rainbow's 
foot. And the poor invalids, tired of one side of the earth, 
are trying to find on another what, thus far, they have sought 
in vain. Trying to live. All passions play on this little 
stage : petty ambitions, jealousies, rivalries, and the gentle 
courtesies, sweet friendships, and the kind civilities of life, are 
just as pronounced, in their deformities and their charms, as in 
the social world on shore. It brings out the nature of people, 
the good and evil in them, wonderfully, to be kept a week or 
two on the water, and you hardly know what is in a man, or 
what you, yourself, are, until you have been to sea. And so 
we have worried away these nine days on shipboard ; taking 
in great supplies of oxygen from the pure air on the ocean, 
sleeping much, and so getting the rest that belongs to the 
just, meditating on the mysteries of eternity suggested 
always by the sight of the unbounded waste of waters, and 
working out problems saved up for such a leisure time as 
this. It is a good thing to have a little time in life when one 
can do nothing but think. 



178 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 



CHESTER CATHEDRAL SERVICE. 

How many hundred years ago the Cathedral of Chester 
was founded, I do not pretend to know, but in those days of 
old, when monks of Romish order had their habitations, like 
moles and bats, in crypts, cloisters, and cells, this pile was 
reared, and afterwards came, with scores of other church 
properties, into the hands of the Anglican communion. 

It was the Abbey of St. Werburgh, and to this day the 
Bishop sits in his throne which was the shrine of the saint, 
what time he was venerated in these venerable walls. The 
wall of the city, now a promenade, winds along and near the 
cathedral ; and in the evening before the Sabbath, a solitary 
visitor, I stood on the wall looking down, by the uncertain 
light of the moon, into the old burying ground, where the 
dead forgotten lie, who, long centuries ago, stood on this 
same wall, and looked upon the place in which their dust 
now waits the resurrection. The chimes waked me on the 
Sabbath morning: sweetly solemn chimes: the only bell- 
ringing that we ought to have in a city : sacred music, uni- 
versal worship. There ! they are going again this moment, 
and from my window I see the" towers and turrets from 
which the voices of the bells come with their sweet melodies 
on the evening air : fit expression of the heart's incense of 
praise : it is above the city, it is not infected with the greed 
and grime of the earth, earthy ; but as if the upper and 
better life of man were calling out to heaven, these chimes 
waft his prayers and praises to the skies. 

They waked us, and then they invited us to the great 
cathedral for morning worship. So dilapidated are the sur- 
roundings of this irregular and antiquated pile, it was hard 
to find an entrance. But as we saw others passing in by a 
little door — a needle's eye — we followed, and a verger — an 
usher we might call him — received us politely, and, without 
a moment's delay, led us to excellent seats within the choir, 
where the service was conducted : he expressed regret that 
he could not give us better seats, but we would not have 



CHESTER CATHEDRAL SERVICE. 179 

chosen any others. In the midst of the choir stood a very 
aged man, the chief of the vergers, who, leaning upon his 
staff, seemed to have nothing to do but to look about him 
and be in the way of the people as they came in. Presently, 
when a large congregation was seated, the procession of 
singing boys and singing men filed in, led by three vergers 
with symbols of office on their shoulders. When they had 
taken their seats, the choral service, or the service intoned 
by the choir, began. All the parts usually read by the 
minister, and responded to by the people, were performed in 
a voice which was neither singing, chanting, nor reading, 
but a mixture of them all, and so mingled as to produce an 
effect exceedingly pleasing to those who have a taste for the 
musical ; but to others far from being devotional. I have 
heard monks intoning their service so much, and am so un- 
accustomed to hear anything of the kind elsewhere, I was 
not edified by it now ; but those with me enjoyed it greatly, 
and assured me that the music was often exquisite, and the 
whole service very impressive. 

Another "officer" marched in, followed by a venerable 
clergyman, who ascended the steps of the reading desk, and 
gave the lessons of Scripture. And soon afterwards, the 
bishop and two other clergy were conducted to the altar, 
where, in turn, they continued the service. The youngest of 
them, a minor canon, ascended the pulpit and preached a 
sermon of fifteen minutes ; and, as the service altogether was 
more than two hours long, it is plain that " prayer and praise 
are here regarded as a far more important part of worship" 
than the preaching of the word. The sermon was good, 
The doctrine of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit 
in the church, attending the word, and helping the soul in its 
struggles after holiness, was set forth with clearness and 
force. It was a disappointment to us that Dr. Howson, the 
Dean of the Cathedral, author of the Life of Paul, etc., was 
not in the pulpit: he was out of town. But the whole 
service was grateful to the Christian heart, and in the special 
thanksgiving for those who had just safely crossed the ocean, 
we were able fervently to join, for only the day before we 



180 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

had been on the sea, and this was our first Sabbath on 
shore. 

And there is something in the place of worship. God is 
everywhere, and they who worship him in spirit and truth 
will find him and be found of him, not in this mountain only 
nor in that, not in the mighty temple only, but in the hum- 
blest home where the contrite heart pours out its wants into 
his ever-open ear. Yet he has inscribed his name in places 
where he has promised to meet his people, and of which 
places he has said, Here will I dwell. And when one comes 
into a House of Prayer that has stood a thousand years, and 
during all that time has been the shrine where human hearts 
have been brought with all their yearnings after peace, hope, 
and heaven, where the sin-sick and sorrowing have come 
kneeling at the footstool of Infinite compassion asking for- 
giveness ; where kings, conquerors, and conquered have laid 
their crowns before the altar and prayed to be servants of 
the Most High ; where rich and poor have always met 
together kneeling on the same stone floor ; and the strong 
man has bowed himself, and the maiden, in her loveliness 
and grief, has come with her story none but Jesus ought to 
know ; where saints have sung songs of triumph on their 
way to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads, and where 
the ashes of the dead sleep in blessed hope while angels 
watch their sepulchres, waiting the music that shall call 
them up, through " old marble," to the judgment; when one 
comes into such a place, he may well hear a voice saying, 
" Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon 
thou standest is holy ground ; this is none other than the 
house of God ; this is one of the gates of heaven." 

It is not the exalting power of these Gothic arches, nor the 
harmony of the lines and the silent music of the curving 
traceries in stone, nor the many-colored stories on the 
painted windows through which the sun at high-noon steals 
gently in as though his light should not disturb the solemn 
service of the hour ; these are not the elements that form 
the sense of holiness that fills the place. Without doubt 
they enter into it. But as the heart clings to childhood's 



A SABBATH IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND. 181 

home and haunts, and every year makes stronger the ties 
that bind us to the scenes we loved, so the old church, the 
place where our fathers and theirs worshipped, is dearer to 
us than the more splendid house that our new neighbors 
have reared. Such an ancient cathedral as this is written all 
over, within and without, with the prayers and tears, and 
songs and glory, of successive centuries, and every column, 
every stone, is full of the presence of Him who has, in all 
these revolving years, made this house his dwelling-place. 
The floor of the choir is laid in curiously-colored tiles, and 
at my feet Saint Ambrose is singing his own Te Deum, and 
the twelve apostles, in the same quaint style, make a sacred 
circle, over which we step : but I forget all that the art of 
man, rude or skilled, ancient or modern, has wrought to 
adorn and illustrate the place. These are human, and, 
whatever uses they have are lost when I remember that the 
things seen are temporal, but the unseen — the soul-work on 
this cold floor and under this groined roof — the unseen soul- 
work is eternal — here, through these long centuries, men 
and women, such as we are, have been fighting the battle of 
an endless life. 

This invests Chester Cathedral with its majestic power, 
and makes one day within its sacred courts better than a 
thousand elsewhere. 



A SABBATH IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND. 

From early childhood, when I was a boy in Cambridge, 
N. Y., I had such associations with Cambridge, in England, 
and its famous University, as to inspire the strong desire to 
see the place and its venerable seats of learning. There Sir 
Isaac Newton studied, and Milton and Bacon ; and no other 
names but Shakespeare's have equal lustre in the firmament 
of English letters. I had been at Oxford in former visits to 
England, but had not been able to go to Cambridge, for it 
is not on the line^ of usual travel, and is therefore less visited 
by tourists. 



1 82 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

It is less than two hours from London. The road is 
through a region of great beauty, passing the seat of Sir 
Culling Eardley, an$ Earl Cowper's at Hatfield, Brompton 
Park, Welwyn, where Young wrote his " Night Thoughts," 
and where he is buried, and many spots celebrated in Eng- 
lish history. We left London at 5 o'clock on Saturday eve- 
ning: London crowded with life: London the largest, migh- 
tiest, richest, busiest, most surging, restless, tumultuous 
city in the world : the city that overpowers you more than 
any other with a sense of its greatness and importance, and 
from which you escape with a sense of relief, as if you could 
breathe more freely and feel that you are somebody and not 
merely a mote in the boundless air. As we rode out of this 
great city, toward the close of one of the loveliest days in 
June, and instantly were ushered into the beautiful scenery 
of rural England — and that is the same as saying into the 
sweetest in all Europe — we were charmed every moment as 
we fairly flew over the fifty miles. 

In the midst of the colleges and churches — for they are 
clustered closely — stands an ancient hotel that bears the 
name of Bull — the Bull Hotel. It is a marvel of rare taste 
and elegance, the landlord being a virtuoso, rejoicing in old 
china, curious furniture, and exquisite prints and paintings, 
with which he has filled his rooms, and made them a museum 
of art, while his wife manages the establishment and makes 
it a delightful home for the traveller. Here we rested over 
the Sabbath. It became a day of days. We might well call 
it a red-letter day, for it was known in the University year as 
" Scarlet Day," when the heads of the colleges attend divine 
service in scarlet gowns, making a picturesque appearance. 

Cambridge is not so imposing in the grandeur of its old 
halls as Oxford: there the very smoke and grime of ages seem 
to cover the outer walls with the marks of antiquity. The 
grounds in the midst of the twenty colleges of Oxford are 
more highly ornamented with flowers than these, and alto- 
gether there is more culture in the walks and probably more 
books in the libraries, as there are more students in the 
halls. But Cambridge is the most classical, most like a 



A SABBATH IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND. 183 

University town: its college grounds are more extensive 
than those of Oxford, and nature has done so much for them, 
that little is required of art. It takes its name from the 
river Cam on which it stands. It is old enough to have been 
burned by the Danes in 871, and to have been rebuilt and to 
have a castle reared by William the Conqueror, a bit of which 
is yet in the midst of it. The University has not kept its 
own history, and, with all its learning, cannot tell when it 
began to be. Six hundred years ago, according to Hallam, 
it was incorporated, and one college after another has been 
founded, until there are now seventeen : they unitedly own 
the great library, the press, the observatory, and such insti- 
tutions as are of common importance, but each college has 
its own funds, with which it is endowed, its own students, 
professors, and fellows. The oldest of these colleges is 
St. Peter's, founded, it is said, in 1257, and the stained glass 
windows of its chapel rival those of the Cologne Cathedral. 
Caius College gave Jeremy Taylor his education. King's 
College has a chapel that is the chief architectural glory of 
the city. As I stood in front of it in the evening, with the 
new moon hanging above its two towers, it seemed to me 
more beautifully sublime than any building I had seen in 
England. In the garden of Christ College is a mulberry tree 
which John Milton planted when a student here. Erasmus 
was one of its professors. Samuel Pepys gave his great 
library to Magdalen College, his alma mater. Trinity is the 
greatest college of all, and sometimes has one-third of all the 
students in the University. Henry VIII., the much-married 
monarch, was its founder. Sir Isaac Newton was educated 
in it, and became one of its professors, and his statue adorns 
it now. Lord Byron's statue, very properly refused admis- 
sion into Westminster Abbey, found hospitality here, where 
he was a student. It has raised more Church dignitaries 
than any other college here or at Oxford. And its eminent 
graduates in Church and State are to be counted by hun- 
dreds and thousands. Its quadrangles are surrounded by 
massive piles of buildings, with rooms for students, apart- 
ments for resident fellows and the faculties ; a city of learn- 



184 IRENjEUS letters. 

ing : a holy quiet filled the courts : it was an abode of 
thought, inviting to patient study, and that calm enjoyment 
which the true scholar loves. In the rear of the colleges, on 
the banks of the narrow river, are delightful walks, shaded 
by great trees, and into these walks all the college grounds 
open, so that the students are tempted to exercise in the 
open air. There are always between two and three thousand 
young men in the pursuit of education here, and to all 
appearances they have every appliance for the pursuit of 
health at the same time. The resident fellows have their 
lodgings and board and a regular annuity, which they have 
attained by successful competition in scholarship. So long 
as they remain unmarried, they retain this fellowship with 
its emoluments. I asked a janitor if they were not allowed 
to have a mother or aunt to reside with them. " Nothing in 
the shape of a woman," was the very decided answer. 

A lovelier summer Sabbath day cannot be in this world, 
than the one we had in Cambridge. As the hour for morn- 
ing service approached, the chimes of bells in many an 
ancient tower began their matin melodies, and filled the air 
with their holy song. The city seemed full of praise. And 
at eventide again they gave out their soft and sacred tones, 
not with the harsh jingling and hoarse discord of rival bells, 
but in unison and as if they were the voice of many people 
worshipping the Unseen. And from all the churches and 
from many chapels the voice of Christian song poured forth 
upon the ears even of those who walked the streets, and it 
was in proof that the people were the Lord's. I worshipped 
in the morning at St. Benedict's, and there heard a spiritual 
and earnest sermon, every word of which was fitted to do 
them good who heard it. In the afternoon the annual Uni- 
versity sermon was preached by Dr. Guillemard, of Pem- 
broke College, in the Church of St. Mary. The attendance 
was immensely small : certainly there were not two hundred 
people in a house that would seat a thousand. The church 
service was not read, but, in its place, the preacher made 
what is called the Bidding Prayer. He said : " Let us pray 
for the Queen, the Royal Family, the Bishop, Clergy, the. 



A SABBATH IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND. 185 

University," and so on, naming all sorts and conditions of 
persons, and then prayed for them all at once, by saying the 
Lord's prayer. This is the custom here and at Oxford on 
the occasion of this sermon. The appointment to preach is 
given to the several colleges in turn, and is considered an 
honor to the preacher selected, who prepares himself with 
great diligence. The sermon now delivered was on the 
believer being " baptized into the death of Christ," and the 
learned Doctor stated incidentally that in the primitive times 
Christian baptism was performed by dipping the head under 
water, in the case of infants and adults. His language in 
regard to the efficacy of the sacrament was the same as that 
used in the Church of England, indicating the doctrine of 
regeneration therein. Otherwise the discourse was evangel- 
ical and very discriminating against rationalism. He held 
that the University was founded for the support of Chris- 
tianity, and that its power should be felt in all its relations, 
in the defence and advancement of the truth of the gospel. 
He quoted from the New Testament in Greek, again and 
again, and his pronunciation of that language was the Cam- 
bridge style : thus the diphthong ou he pronounced as we do 
in our or out ; he did not say 00 as some of our colleges, 
making the word tooto instead of touto. In a word, he pro- 
nounced the Greek language as the boys were taught to pro- 
nounce it in the academy at Cambridge, N. Y., when the 
undersigned was there. 

This day at Cambridge was very suggestive of lessons for 
the improvement of our own college system, in a country 
young indeed, but already able to do far more for its colleges 
than it yet attempts in the way of culture out of doors and 
in. It takes time to do many of the things that render 
these grounds and halls so lovely and so sublime. And 
every year is precious. It requires aesthetic tastes, and in 
our practical country and age, even men of education under- 
value the ideal, and despise those embellishments that ad- 
dress only the sense of the beautiful. It is a pity, and the 
pity is, it's true. Let us hope the time is at hand when we 
will do better. 



1 86 IREN&US LETTERS, 



A MONASTERY AND CONVENT. 

It was never well to put a monastery and a convent near 
together. One is for monks, the other for nuns. God said 
it was not good for man to be alone, and he made woman to 
be his wife, his lawful companion, the solace and help of his 
life. But he never made nuns for monks. Neither monas- 
teries nor convents are among the divine institutions. He 
did ordain families, but the whole conventual system of 
the Church of Rome has been a war upon the divine econo- 
my, an outrage upon the human race, and a hot-bed of the 
foulest crimes, of which murder is not the worst. 

In the lovely valley and village of Interlaken, the fairest 
spot in all Switzerland, at the foot of the Jungfrau — the 
Maiden — ever clad in robes of snow, is a long, rambling, tur- 
reted building of stone, with a history so romantic and 
ancient, that its present peaceful, pious, and proper uses 
make the story almost incredible. This house was once a 
monastery and a convent : not both in one precisely ; but a 
thin partition only separated the two, while an underground 
passage made them easily one. And such was the corrup- 
tion of morals which was the ready consequence of such 
association of men and women under vows of celibacy, that 
long before Luther's Reformation began, this den of iniquity 
was broken up, and in our better days the building presents 
a livelier illustration of Christian union than any other house 
of which we have ever heard, in any country in the world. 
Yesterday I worshipped God in it with a congregation of 
Scotch Presbyterians : while from another chapel in it came 
the songs of an English Episcopalian church service: a 
Swiss-French Evangelical church holds its service also under 
the same roof, and the Roman Catholics celebrate mass and 
have their regular and daily service in the principal chapel 
of this venerable pile. The edifice belongs to the govern- 
ment, which uses many of the apartments for public offices : 
the wings are well-arranged hospitals, and the battlemented 
towers surmount the church, which is appropriated to such 



A MONASTERY AND CONVENT. 187 

congregations as wish to have worship in it in their own 
way. 

The monastery was founded about the year 11 30, more 
than seven hundred years ago, for the use of fifty monks of 
the Order of St. Augustine, and was most unfittingly dedi- 
cated to the Holy Virgin. For they had not long been 
resident in this sunny and charming valley, the very spot for 
luxurious and idle life, than these self-denying monks procured 
the establishment, within their walled enclosure, of a nunnery, 
over which an abbess nominally presided, but with the pro- 
vision that the provost of the monastery was also to be the 
superintendent of the nunnery. At first the number of nuns 
was limited to forty, but the number was gradually increased 
until it included more than three hundred. The nuns were 
admitted to the Order of St. Augustine, by an easy modifica- 
tion of the rules. So the monks and the nuns became sub- 
stantially one order, and living within the same enclosure, 
and exempt from all intrusion or control, they had things 
their own way for a series of centuries. To what extremities 
of evil such an institution, in such a series of years, would 
grow, it is more easy to imagine than to portray with a 
modest pen. The monastery was by-and-by placed by the 
Pope of the period under the protection of the Empire, and 
afterwards it was given to the city of Berne, with exemption 
from all taxes and endowed with great revenues. The lands 
that paid tribute to the monastery were farmed by the 
peasantry, and they resented the hard taxes they were com- 
pelled to pay. This brought on wars, in which the valleys of 
the Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, and Interlaken were made 
red with the blood of a people resisting unto death the 
grinding exactions of these pampered and dissolute monks, 
who had the law and government on their side. These anti- 
rent wars were fearfully bloody and cruel, and always ended 
in the triumph of the monks and the temporary submission 
of the peasants. 

Vast as the income of the monastery was, the prodigality 
of these rapacious and luxurious monks was so great that 
they were always living beyond their revenue, and incurring 



1 88 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

heavy debts. They spent the money in riotous living, until 
the scandal of their lives became an offence to the Church 
and the State, in a period when morals were low enough in 
both, and neither was very fastidious. It was said that more 
children were born in the nunnery than in the whole valley 
around it. None of them, however, lived. Twice the divi- 
sion wall had been destroyed by fire in consequence of the 
revels to which the inmates abandoned themselves. Offi- 
cial visitations were made, but so powerful had the order 
become, that it easily defied the authority of a distant 
Bishop. Then the civil government took hold of it, and 
reported the terrible state of things to the Court of Rome, 
and the Pope issued a Bull telling the naughty monks to 
behave themselves better. They said they would, but they 
did not. And at last, in 1484, the Pope took all the nuns 
away, and made over the revenues of the convent to a sister 
institution at Berne. There a few of them went, and some 
found husbands to console them when they were compelled 
to quit the monks. 

But the monks were not disposed to give it up so. They 
introduced into their order a system of concubinage, with 
more shameful proceedings than ever. In 1527, the monas- 
tery of Interlaken — this beautiful vale — was like Sodom for 
wickedness, and deserved the doom of the cities of the 
plain. The house became the seat of riot and disorder, and 
so great was the scandal that the government was con- 
strained to interfere and break up the establishment. The 
monks were driven out, being allowed pensions for life, but 
they did not concentrate themselves again, and the places 
that knew them once, knew them no more. 

The ancient walls, the halls that resounded with their un- 
godly revelry, the nests of their foul debauchery, are still 
here, and the beautiful sunlight shines in upon them as if 
nothing but purity and peace could ever have reigned in 
these hallowed precincts. A decrepit woman, feeble with 
disease and age, was sitting on a bench under the arched 
portal as I entered, and out of the windows of the hospital, 
patients, old and young, were looking ; the several chapels 



A MONASTERY AND CONVENT. 189 

Were designated by the names of the various Churches that 
now gather to worship God under these ancient roofs ; happy 
children with their nurses were playing under the mighty 
trees that have stood for centuries in the grounds about the 
monastery, and I could not but lift up my heart, and my 
voice too, in a devout " thank God," that this fair spot, so 
sweet, so cool, so near to the snow-white mountains, yet 
adorned with meadows green and flowers, is not now, as it 
was once, defiled with the abominations of a monastery and 
a convent. Either of them is evil, and only evil. United 
they make even this paradise a whited sepulchre, full of all 
uncleanness. But instead of preaching a warning against 
the whole monastic system, always corrupt and corrupting, 
and against ''sisterhoods," always evil, and never expedient 
in Protestant hospitals or schools, let me tell you a little 
story that this monastery suggests. 

In a few minutes' walk from Interlaken we come to the 
ruins of the Castle of Unspunnen, the ideal residence of By- 
ron's Manfred, and the scene of romantic incidents sufficient 
to form a chapter of themselves. In the latter part of the 
fifteenth century, when the dissoluteness of the monastery of 
Interlaken was at its height, the lord of Unspunnen sought 
to constrain his sister to take the veil at the convent. The 
brother would thus get half of her fortune, and the convent 
the rest. But the noble woman knew too well the repute of 
the institution, and scorned to become a member of such a 
sisterhood. Yet such a pressure was brought to bear upon 
her, that she was led to the altar where she was to take the 
vow, when, perceiving a remarkably handsome young man 
among the spectators, she remembered the law of the land 
which permitted the means of escape that she now embraced. 
She turned to him and offered him her hand in marriage. 
He had long looked on her with yearning heart, and was 
swift to accept the offer. They were married without delay, 
and the lovely maiden, Elizabeth of Scharnachtul, now the 
happy bride of Thomas Guntschi, of Matten, was saved from 
the rascally monks. Their descendants still live in the 
Oberland. 



190 I RE N^ US LETTERS. 



CASTLE OF UNSPUNNEN. 

Only a round tower remains to mark the site and tell the 
story of the Castle of Unspunnen. Yes, there is a pit that 
is the vestige of the donjon keep, in which fifty brave and 
good men languished four years, and were at last delivered 
from a lingering death. 

This castle, or what remains of it, stands near Interlaken 
in Switzerland, and commands the entrance to the valleys of 
Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen. For centuries — and this 
was centuries ago — it was the most famous and formidable 
stronghold in this wild country, and history and tradition 
tell many and fearful tales of violence, rapine, blood, and of 
love also, about the lords and the vassals that made this cas- 
tle their fortress in the days of old. But neither history nor 
tradition goes back to the date of its erection, though the 
site of it and the use of it plainly enough indicate the object 
of its founder. As I have been travelling through the Swiss 
valleys and narrow defiles, and over the high ways that 
divide or connect them, I see that, in times when might was 
the rule of right, and violence reigned in these regions, 
these valleys would be independent of each other and often 
in conflict for the supremacy. Raids would be made by 
robbers to carry off flocks and herds. The lord of the 
manor would become a chieftain, and the peasants his 
retainers to follow him into the domains of his neighbors, 
or to meet, with fire and sword, his enemies. 

In the tenth century, the Dukes of Zahringen were the 
lieutenants of the Emperor, claiming sovereignty over the 
whole of this country, but the head men of the Swiss valleys, 
strong in their men and wealth, resisted the supreme author- 
ity and fought for independence. The dukes founded some 
of the finest cities of Switzerland, and the Zahringen hotel 
in Frieburg, where we paused to hear its wonderful organ, 
is named after the founder of the city. He built the castle 
of Thun in 1182, and began the city of Bern in 1191. 

The lords of Unspunnen waxed mighty in those days, 



CASTLE OF UNSPUNNEN. 191 

arid many of these fertile vales and rugged mountains were 
under their control, the peasants paying taxes to them, and 
every district furnishing warriors to fight the battles of the 
barons. Berthold was the Duke of Zahringen, and Burkard 
was the Baron of Unspunnen. Deadly foes they were, and 
many were the fierce fights they had, when, with wild war- 
riors at their heels, they had laid waste each other's lands, 
spreading desolation in their track. As we read the details 
of those days of rapine, we see that war then was very like 
what is going on to-day in the East. 

Burkard of Unspunnen had no son to succeed him, but he 
rejoiced in a daughter, his only daughter, Ida, whom he 
loved, the child of his old age. Her mother was dead. The 
old warrior was weary of strife and found his only comfort 
in his daughter, the joy of his heart. She was remarkable 
for virtue and beauty, being known over the valleys for her 
charities, and renowned far and wide for the elegance of her 
person and her manners. The vassals of her father spoke of 
her as the " fair lady of the castle," and were so devoted to 
her that every one of them would cheerfully have laid down 
his life in defence of her rights and her honor. Now it came 
to pass that, on a time when the lords and ladies of all the 
lands were gathered at a tournament, and knights, who in 
battle were foes, now met as friends for friendly contest, a 
certain brave and gallant knight, Rodolph of Wadiswyl, saw 
the "fair lady of the castle" of Unspunnen, the beautiful Ida, 
and was at once smitten to the heart. When he learned 
that she was the daughter of his master's mortal foe, for 
Rodolph was a follower and kinsman of Berthold, he knew 
that it was in vain for him to make known his passion, and 
he resolved to woo her in the fashion of the day, and in a 
way not altogether unknown at this day in some parts of the 
world. He nursed the flame in his own bosom, drew around 
him a few trusty and valiant friends, of courage and prowess 
like his own, and in the darkness of the night, that their 
approach might not be discovered, they pursued their secret 
march from Berne, by the way of the Lake Thun, and across 
the southern side of the plain of Interlaken. They were 



I9 2 IRE N^. US LETTERS. 

now in the enemy's country. But it was not difficult to con- 
ceal themselves in the mountain forests, until a night of 
darkness and storm made it favorable for them to steal 
unperceived upon the castle. They scaled its walls. They 
found the lovely Ida, and with gentle violence carried her 
off to Berne. She did not find her captor such a monster as 
his wooing promised, but like the Sabine women, she soon 
learned to love the gallant knight, and became his willing 
and devoted wife. 

But when the old father, the Baron Burkard, knew the 
wrong that had been done him, and who it was that had 
done it, the youthful fires broke out in his aged frame, and 
he roused his vassals to fresh fields of bloody war, to recover 
his daughter and punish the robbers. 'The war was one of the 
fiercest of those fierce times, and both parties were exhausted. 
The Duke of Zahringen was the first to give in, and he 
resolved to try the power of conciliation and moral suasion. 
He went to the Castle of Unspunnen in peace, and present- 
ing himself to old Burkard, found him weeping for the loss 
of his daughter and longing for her return. The Duke 
offered his hand to the Baron, who took it cheerfully, and at 
that moment the daughter and her husband, with their hand- 
some boy, entered and fell at the feet of the weeping old 
man. He was overjoyed to see them, and making his grand- 
son the heir of his possessions, he died the last of the barons. 
Walter, the grandson, succeeded to the leadership, peace was 
made with the dukes, and the castle, in the course of time, 
fell into the hands of John, Baron of Weissenberg. He fell 
out with the duke who had plundered his estates in those 
beautiful valleys of the Simmenthal, which we rode through 
the other day. The duke raised an army and attempted to 
surprise Lord John in his Unspunnen fortress, but John was 
too wary for him, and routed him with great slaughter. 
Fifty men were taken prisoners, and cast into the dungeon 
of the castle, where they were kept as prisoners in wretched- 
ness too well known by their friends outside, to suffer them 
to be forgotten. Four years passed by, and all attempts to 
rescue them failing, a regular siege was laid and pushed on 



GOING TO A GLACIER. 1 93 

with such vigor that the proud baron was reduced to terms, 
and was compelled to give liberty to these captives. The 
subsequent history of the castle is not of any special interest. 
Five hundred years ago the monastery of Interlaken, whose 
disgusting history was written in the last letter, held a mort- 
gage on the property, and it continued to change hands until 
it finally fell into the hands of the city of Berne, and then 
into those of Interlaken. But it gradually lost its import- 
ance as the lands became the property of the peasants, and 
the castle fell into decay. In modern times attention has 
been drawn to it, and a fictitious interest attached to it, by 
the fact that Lord Byron is supposed to have adopted it as 
the site of the residence of Manfred, the misanthropic hero 
of the tragedy of that name. The scenery of the region 
depicted by the poet corresponds well enough with this, and 
it is also stated that Byron wrote a part at least of that pro- 
duction on the Wengern Alp, which is close by, and on the 
route from Lauterbrunnen to Grindelwald. This is the best 
pass in Switzerland to see the avalanches, and glaciers are 
near at hand : the roar of torrents, the crash of falling oceans 
of snow and ice, the mist and clouds and cold, make the 
region a fit place for the melancholy ravings of a morbid 
poet. 



GOING TO A GLACIER. 

The grandest of all the Swiss glaciers takes its name from 
the Rhone, the river that is born beneath it, and then flows 
on five hundred miles into the sea. When I was at the 
Rhone Glacier twenty years ago, we could reach it only on 
foot or on mules, and the bridle-path brought us to the bot- 
tom of the glacier, where we stood and looked up and away 
to the distant heights, where its turrets and towers glistened 
in the sun, reminding me of the lines : 

" The City of my God I see 

Above the firmament afar ; 

Its every dome a noonday sun, 

And every pinnacle a star." 



194 IRENES US LETTERS. 

But now, by the new road, the most formidable piece of 
engineering in the country, we come in a carriage to the 
same level with these icy palaces, and look into their portals, 
and go round about their bulwarks, and survey without 
danger or fatigue this marvellous spectacle. With the sun 
blazing upon it, and on the uncounted peaks of mountains 
rising around it, the sight easily surpasses in beauty and sub- 
limity any other scene in Switzerland. 

We left Lucerne at 8 a. m., on one of the lake steamers- 
The Rigi was without a cap, and Pilatus had on caps enough 
for both. It was long supposed that poor Pontius Pilate 
came to a sad end on this mountain, and that his troubled 
spirit still haunts it with tempest and lightnings. The story 
is not now so generally believed, but the storms and vapors 
continue just the same. And the Lake of the Four Cantons 
is as lovely and grand and classical as it ever was, despite 
those mousing critics who would prove that William Tell is 
a myth. The mountains about this lake rise so suddenly 
from its waters, the passages from one bay to another are so 
fortified by nature, that every mile of the lake is intensely 
interesting. It is very easy to believe that the three Swiss 
patriots met, in the dead of night, on that sloping ledge to 
concert measures for the deliverance of their country. And 
their full length portraits on the wharf at Brunnen show 
what sort of heroes they were. Tell's chapel tells where he 
leaped from the boat and escaped from his tyrant Gessler, 
and forty natives went ashore as we touched, to make a pil- 
grimage to the shrine. 

When we reached Fluellen, we took a carriage for a three 
days' journey, and at 1 1 o'clock were on our way to the hill- 
country. Altorf was reached in a few minutes, where William 
Tell shot the apple on his boy's head. That there may be 
no doubt about it, he stands in a rude monument, with a 
cross-bow in his hand, and a frightful picture presents the 
tragic scene. The same story is traditional in other coun- 
tries, and it is much better to believe in two or even three 
Tells than in none at all. 

At Amsteg, ten miles farther up, we endured a miserable 



GOING TO A GLACIER. 195 

dinner; we were promised a chicken, but it was more like a 
crow that had died of famine. Now we began in earnest the 
ascent of the St. Gothard pass that leads over the Alps into 
Italy. It is a splendid road ; by the river Reusse, that comes 
roaring and tumbling from the mysterious heights and depths 
of these glaciers and fields of perpetual snow. As we ascend, 
we find the beginnings of the railroad that is to scale these 
formidable walls, pierce the heart of rock, and come out on 
the Italian side. A whole village has suddenly sprung up of 
Italian laborers and their families, at work in the tunnel. 
Not a bit like the Swiss were these black-eyed, vivacious, 
rollicking sons of the sunny side of the Alps. They can 
work but two or three hours at a time in the tunnel, so foul 
is the air in spite of the pumps : then fresh relays of men 
take their places; and so the work goes on, to be completed 
in three years, nine miles through. The enterprise and bold- 
ness of such an undertaking has no parallel in any railroad 
ventures in the country from which we have come. 

As we came to the narrow gorge which is known as the 
Priest's Leap, from the fable that a priest once leaped across 
it with a maid in his arms, five or six young natives, each 
with a rock on his or her shoulder, suddenly appeared, and 
when we had alighted and approached the verge, they let 
their burdens fall, and we watched them till they reached the 
water in the abyss. This is a regular entertainment to which 
all travelers are invited, and the little money the droppers 
pick up goes a good way in keeping them alive to amuse the 
next comers. 

The Devil's Bridge is the most frightful scene on the road, 
where the rush of waters in the tortuous and rocky channel 
is so terrible that weak nerves cannot bear the sight of it. 
Yet in this very spot the Russians and French, and before 
that the Austrians and Swiss, have fought bloody battles, 
contending for this mountain pass, as at this moment the 
Russians and Turks are struggling for the Shipka in the 
East. 

We passed the night at Andermatt, and in the morning 
resumed our upward journey. This village is 4,600 feet 



196 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

above the level of the sea. Vegetation is scant : pasturage 
is poor, the inhabitants are few and far between on the 
mountain sides. Hospenthal is at the fork of the two roads, 
one over the St. Gothard into Italy, which we now leave, 
and the other over the Furka, which we now pursue. The 
ancient mule and foot-path kept the ravine through which 
the Reusse comes down, but the engineers of the carriage 
road, why it is not easy to understand, pushed their course 
along the side of the mountain, doubling the road back on 
itself, with long loops, and fearfully sharp curves, almost 
angles, yet making the ascent so gradual that the carriage 
seems to be nearly on a level as we go up the steep. Steady 
nerves enjoy the toilsome way. From the edge of the road, 
solid and smooth, we are looking beyond the precipices 
below to lofty and snow-clad summits of unnumbered moun- 
tains, some of them wrapped partly in robes of mist, some 
of them tipped and gilded with sunlight, all of them cold, 
dreary, desolate, as if they were not needed in the world, 
and were here stowed away by themselves in solitary gran- 
deur and death-like repose. 

Four hours and a half of this uphill work brought us to 
the top of the mountain, and passing over it, by the little 
inn that offers hospitality to travellers, we descended in a 
few minutes to the level of the most glorious section of the 
Glacier of the Rhone. 

It is not a sea of ice ; it is a mighty torrent, tossed by a 
tempest into the most fantastic forms, and suddenly con- 
gealed ! As Coleridge puts it, " motionless torrents, silent 
cataracts." Yet even this is not the fitting simile ; for from 
its surface tall spires of clear, shining ice spring into the air : 
solid shafts, of irregular heights and shapes : and looking 
down upon it, as we do from our point of observation, deep 
chasms, long ravines yawn before us, and reveal the horrors 
of an ice grave for those who venture to cross this danger- 
ous field. One large section, slightly more worn by the sun 
and rains than the rest, was tinted with pink and blue, and 
in the shadows, cast by passing clouds, falling on some of 
the pinnacles, and the others being in the bright sunlight, 



THE GREEN VAULTS. 197 

showed the most variegated, rosy and greenish hues. Many 
of the columns were translucent, and of exceeding beauty. 
This glacier stretches fifteen miles upward between the 
Gelmerhorn and Gertshorn, and exceeds all the others in 
the grandeur of its features and the sublimity of its sur- 
roundings. To give the names of all the peaks to be seen 
from the point whence we are studying the scene, would be 
like reciting the geography of Switzerland, so many and so 
familiar are they. 

While we were on the mountain, we observed the gather- 
ing of clouds, and thought it might rain in the course of the 
day. Our visit to the glacier being ended, we went back to 
the Furka inn for dinner. Presently the mists rose from the 
vale and enveloped the house in gloom. Then it began to 
thunder and lighten. The rain came down in torrents. The 
winds blew, and then hailstones came rattling upon the roof. 
It was almost dark at mid-day. When it held up, and we 
had made a short dinner, we came down the mountain. It 
was quite another thing from going up. The sure-footed 
horses trotted squarely, turned the sharp corners steadily, 
and in less than two hours brought us safely to Andermatt. 
The next morning, a fine bright day, we drove down the St. 
Gothard road, to the boat at Fluellen, and were soon in our 
rooms at Lucerne. 



THE GREEN VAULTS. 

They are called so because they are not vaults and are not 
green. In other respects the name is as well as another 
would be. They are rooms on the ground floor of the old 
palace of the kings of Saxony, in the city of Dresden, filled 
with curious works of art, jewels of silver and gold, and 
precious stones, the pride and play of kings for more than 
three hundred years, a vast museum, the like of which is not 
to be seen elsewhere in Europe, perhaps not in the world. 

The morning was wet and dismal when we emerged from 



193 2RENMUS LETTERS 

our hotel and crossed the square to the Schloss, the name 
usually given to the residence of the king. An archway was 
guarded by a man-at-arms, and then the wide quadrangle 
was passed in the dripping rain, and reaching a small door 
on the further side, we paid the fee — one mark — and were 
admitted into the vaults ! 

Duke George, the Bearded, in 1539, was the Prince of 
Saxony — Elector he was called in those days — and he began 
to collect and preserve the curious things he could lay his 
hands on, and his successors in the kingdom have added to 
them from year to year. Before the American mines were 
discovered, before America was discovered by Europeans, 
the Freiberg silver mines were the richest in the world, and 
the kings of Saxony were wont to convert the fruits of those 
mines into works of art, either having the silver itself 
worked up into them, or exchanging it for precious stones. 
In this way the gold mines of Spain made the Royal gallery 
of paintings in Madrid the most costly and extensive in 
Europe, while Spain is now miserably poor. The pictures 
would not pay her debts, and there is no market just now 
for paintings such as royal purses only can buy : for kings 
have too many debts on hand to indulge in the luxury of 
buying works of art. One of these rooms contains a jewel 
estimated to be worth fifteen millions of dollars : and they 
all have an intrinsic value, such as can hardly be said to 
attach to the most splendid pictures by the greatest artists. 
A diamond is more easily cared for and is less liable to 
perish than a painting or a statue, and there is an impression 
that precious stones become more costly from age to age. 
I have heard it stoutly maintained that it is a better invest- 
ment to buy diamonds than real estate or railroad bonds. 
My experience is not large enough to make an opinion of 
any value. 

John of Bologna was one of the greatest sculptors of the 
sixteenth century, and some of his works in bronze are the 
first to arrest attention as you enter the room. A crucifix 
only eighteen inches in height shows the hand of the master, 
and the uninstructed eye discovers its beauty. " The Bull 



THE GREEN VAULTS. 1 99 

Farnese" is reproduced in bronze, and has a charm that 
belongs to the original marble in Naples, representing the 
powerful work of an artist who lived four hundred years 
before the Christian era. These and many other copies of 
the noblest works of the early centuries are now studied 
with admiration, even by those who are familiar with the 
originals, and as all the royal collections are supplied with 
copies when it is impossible to procure the originals, why 
may we not in the United States, and especially why may 
not the city of New York, possess a gallery in which shall be 
collected copies of the greatest works in all the European 
schools of ancient and modern art ? 

What works in ivory are these in the second room ? Pyra- 
mids, goblets, chains, pillars, groups of girls, goddesses, sea- 
gods and nymphs, Apollo and the muses, allegories that 
have lessons to be read ! ! Even the cunning hand of Albert 
Durer is seen in a group of his exquisite carving : and an 
Ecce Homo ascribed to Benvenuto Cellini : a monk spent his 
lifetime on a group of 141 figures in one piece of ivory, and 
here his patience, if not his genius, appears in his wondrously 
elaborated work. There is no end to this curiously beautiful 
collection. 

Amber wrought into shapes innumerable, corals, shells, 
mosaics of jasper, agate, lapis-lazuli, cornelian, chalcedony, 
laid in black marble, in forms of birds, flowers, insects, fruits 
and all manner of pretty things ; the Saviour and the 
Apostles ; some of them regarded as the finest specimens of 
this kind of work. In the middle of this room is a porcelain 
fire-place, ornamented with biscuit-china, precious stones, 
pebbles, topazes, moss and eye agates, and Saxon pearls, 
making a remarkable object that gives the name to the room 
in which it stands. The art of painting enamel was known 
to the ancients, the designs being painted on a coating of 
pigments with a brush, and then fixed by the action of fire. 
The French have carried the art to perfection, having pur- 
sued it for five hundred years. This is the simplest of the 
styles of enamelling. The Scripture scenes, the mythology, 
the portraits of modern and ancient historical personages, 



200 IRENjEUS letters, 

the madonnas, are beyond my capacity to recount or to 
remember, but each one of them is a study, giving pleasure 
while the eye is upon it, though the sensation is lost so soon 
as you turn to something more beautiful beyond. 

If you are not weary of this repetition of things curious, we 
will pass into the next room, which is painted in green, and 
so is said to have given the name to the vaults. It is called 
the silver room, and the vessels of ornament and use that 
are here gathered, chiefly in silver, would easily furnish a 
palace, from the baptismal fonts in which the children of the 
royal family are " christened," to the chalices for the com- 
munion table and the goblets that have served at royal ban- 
quets for centuries. The Genoa filigree work represents 
flowers and fruits and figures, boxes and vases, every variety 
of fancy and folly, displaying exceeding ingenuity in con- 
struction, with no great success in producing anything very 
useful or ornamental. 

And we are not yet in the great Hall — by way of eminence 
it is called "the Hall of Precious Things," — so far does its 
inventory exceed all that has gone before it. The room 
stretches the width of the palace, and is literally filled with 
a wealth of gems and gold and crystal, wrought into objects 
of use, or of display, or, more than either, of amusement, for 
it is hardly possible that half of these things were made for 
anything else but to entertain the maker or them for whom 
they were made. All the precious stones that are named in 
the "Revelation," and many more, have been wrought into 
the form of snuff boxes, spoons, cups, seals, portraits of 
emperors, and popes, and queens ; a " tower of Babel" has 
mysterious machinery in it that works a clock and every 
minute performs some marvel of ingenuity: a Venetian 
thread-glass jug having an air-bubble between each of the 
meshes : a dromedary lying by the side of a Moor : Venus 
carried in a Sedan chair by porters : a ship on which the 
scene of Perseus and Andromeda is drawn : the rock-crystal 
goblet of Martin Luther — one of so many of his cups ; I 
begin to fear he was often in them ; and the goblets of so 
many mighty men are treasured here, we may be sure that 



THE GREEN VAULTS. 20 i 

the time was when drinking was more an art and an enjoy- 
ment than it is now. 

In one corner of this hall an iron railing protects the most 
singular specimens of delicate handiwork in the chambers. 
The court dwarf of Augustus II. in gold and water-sapphire : 
and an amusing lot of things made of misshapen pearls, put 
together so as to represent human figures and various animals, 
David and Goliath, Satyrs, Jonah and the whale, all of them 
irresistibly funny: carved figures in ebony, so small as to 
require careful examination to discover the skill required for 
their construction ; the potter, the knife-grinder, the lace- 
makers, etc., all done to the life, yet so delicate as to be 
broken by a touch. 

The armory room, which is so called because it has no 
armor in it, is adorned with wood carvings, six by Albert 
Durer, a cherry-pit on which eighty heads can be seen dis- 
tinctly, if you look through a microscope : a case of pistols 
about an inch long, warranted not to kill : and as the crown 
of the whole, we have two real crowns, two scepters, and two 
coronation globes that were used in crowning Augustus III. 
and his Queen in 1734. If the blazing jewels are not real, the 
genuine ones are in the next room into which we now enter. 
For we have now come into the treasury of the Saxon kings ; 
to six cases, in which are displayed the largest, most brilliant, 
beautiful and valuable collection of jewels in Europe. What 
may be in the palaces of the Orient I do not know. These 
have been gathered by purchase, by dowries and inheritance, 
until they are unrivalled : here we see a garniture of rose dia- 
monds, 64 in number, another with 60, a sword hilt with 1,898 
single stones, with orders, epaulets, buckles and buttons "too 
numerous to mention," strings of pearls, necklaces, shoulder- 
knots, earrings, brooches, hairpins, rings set with rubies, 
emeralds, sapphires, garnets, and in the midst of this dazzling 
light are two plain ringer rings that once were the property 
of Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon. These two rings 
are precious because their owners were useful men. Not one 
diamond of all the rest has the slightest value because of the 
king or queen who wore it. 



202 IRENsEUS letters 

But I am tired of making out this list, for that is all I can 
do, and not one in ten thousand of the things has been men- 
tioned. What are they for? What is the use? Are they 
worth the money they cost ? Vain questions. These works, 
like the pictures and statues that adorn the great galleries of 
the world, are fruits of human genius, skill, toil and patience. 
Rich men have paid poor men for making them, and poor 
men have been made rich, or at least happy, by the bounty of 
the rich. Beauty has its use, and the art that produces beauty 
is the gift divine. Nature is the highest art, and God has 
made everything beautiful in its season. 



DRESDEN PICTURES. 

To find one of the best five pictures in the world, you must 
certainly come to Dresden. All good judges may not be 
agreed as to the five, but they will probably all count as one 
of the elected number the Sistine Madonna Raphael. My 
uninstructed judgment places this in the middle of the first 
five, arranged in this order : i. Raphael's Transfiguration ; 2. 
The communion of Jerome, by Domenichino ; 3. The Sistine 
Madonna; 4. Murillo's Assumption of the Virgin; 5. Paul 
Potter's Bull. Artists may smile at this selection, yet the 
unanointed eye may see with more impartial vision than that 
of the artist whose rules constrain him to say that a picture 
ought to please you, and would if you knew what is beautiful 
and perfect in art. No one may fear to place in the front 
rank of the world's best pictures this Dresden Madonna, and 
if you give it the preference before all other conceptions of 
the Virgin Mary, you are still safe and in the midst of a 
goodly company like-minded. Certainly Raphael's Marys 
are the best, and this is his best, so that we are easily brought 
to the decision that the one we are now admiring has no peer. 

Having spent some time in the several galleries of London, 
Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburgh, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, 
Florence, Rome, Naples, Madrid, Seville, and many other 



DRESDEN PICTURES. 203 

European cities, I am quite ready to believe that no one con- 
tains so many pictures of so little merit, together with a few 
of such transcendent excellence, as this one gallery in Dres- 
den. Since I was here before the new Palace of Art has 
been erected, and the paintings removed to it, so that they 
enjoy the advantage of better light and arrangement than 
before. The pictures themselves appear improved : and that 
not by the dreadful process of restoration going on continu- 
ally, but by the more favorable position which they occupy. 
It is fearful to read in history of such a gallery that a man 
is employed by the year to restore the works of the old 
masters : " Fools rush in where angels fear to tread :" and he 
must be a vain, bold man, who would put his clumsy brush 
into the master work of Raphael or Correggio, and confound 
his own coloring with theirs. As well might a rash school- 
boy try to mend the style of Cicero or to restore the lost 
books of Livy. Let us have the real thing in the melancholy 
of its ruin, rather than to be confounded with the mixed 
colors of Michael Angeloand John Smith. Yet this work of 
^-touching is going on continually in all the great galleries 
of Europe. You come to a vacancy on the wall, and learn 
that the picture belonging there has been taken down to be 
cleaned, which means that some one has got the job of putting 
it in order. In the course of a few weeks it will appear in its 
place, radiant with fresh varnish and brilliant as the coat of 
Joseph. The Director of the gallery has the letting out of 
this work, and manages to make a profitable thing of it for 
himself or his favorite artists, who are constantly discovering 
the necessity of overhauling one or another of the pictures. 
The obscurities escape such sacrilege, but the celebrities suffer 
sadly. Here, for example, is the master piece of Correggio, 
" La Notte." 

The history of the picture is very brief, for it has had not 
many vicissitudes : it was painted for the chapel of St. Pros- 
pero, in Reggio, in 1 522-1 528: it was thence transferred to 
the Modena gallery, and was among the hundred pictures 
bought for the Dresden collection in 1745. Here, it has been 
preserved with almost sacred care. But it is a matter of fact, 



204 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

so far from being denied, it is recorded in the history of the 
gallery, that this picture was restored by Palmaroli, of Rome, 
in 1826, and, as if that restoration were not enough, it was 
done over in 1858 by Schirmer of Dresden. It is alarming 
positively to be told, as we are by the Director himself, that 
Palmaroli came here and spent one year restoring the pic- 
tures : in this twelvemonth he restored — think of it — fifty- 
four paintings, all of them by men the latchet of whose shoes 
he could not unloose — and among these glorious works which 
this man put his hand to, and renewed during that awful year, 
were Correggio's La Notte, and Raphael's Sistine Madonna. 
Besides this he touched up three great altar pieces in the 
Roman Catholic Churches ! What a year's work for one 
man! And he was paid more for the work he did upon Cor- 
reggio's La Notte than the great master received for paint- 
ing the original picture ! Then Schirmer, at that time one 
of the Directors of the gallery, took hold of this " La Notte'' 
in 1858, and we have it as it came from his hands. What 
it was when it was the glory of the St. Prospero chapel, no 
man will ever know. 

In a beautiful corner room of this vast palace of art, alone 
in its grandeur and beauty, as if — as indeed it is so — no other 
painting in the gallery is worthy to be in the same apart- 
ment, stands the " Madonna di San Sisto." The picture has 
been so often reproduced in copies, painted, engraved and 
photographed, that the world is familiar with its features. 
The Virgin Mary, having the divine infant in her arms, is 
borne up by clouds ; on her right Saint Sixtus is kneeling and 
adoring. On the left is Saint Barbara, and at the foot of the 
picture two cunning little cherubs rest on their elbows and 
look up. This famous work was painted for the altar of the 
convent in Piacenza, and it was there more than two hun- 
dred years, undisturbed. Raphael died in 1520, at the age of 
37. In the year 171 1 Augustus III., then the Crown Prince 
of Saxony, travelling in Italy, visited this convent, and seeing 
this picture, desired to obtain possession of it. But it was 
full forty years before he succeeded. In 1754 he got it for 
$40,000, the monks keeping a copy, which answers their pur- 



DRESDEN PICTURES. 205 

pose just as well, and the moneywas very acceptable. Their 
copy is regarded as the original at the convent, and if the 
original is restored a few times more, the copy may be equally 
entitled to veneration. The art of restoring pictures is now 
one of the fine arts, and has reached a point of perfection 
beyond which it will hardly pass. It was at first supposed 
that the only way to restore a painting was, as in the case of 
a statue, to make anew what was defective, and to harmonize 
with the original so far as it remains. Now the restorer not 
only does all this with courage and success, but having found 
that the paint upon an old canvas is thick enough and solid 
enough to hold its own when the canvas on which it is laid 
is removed, the restorer carefully removes the dilapidated 
canvas from the paint, puts the old paint upon a new canvas, 
and then supplies the parts that are lacking. If the supplies 
are large, it is difficult to see why he has not made a painting 
more new than old. It is pleasant to know that this grand 
painting by Raphael has suffered less at the merciless hands 
of the tinkers than many others. It is probable that the 
heads of the Madonna, the infant, and the saints, are sub- 
stantially the same as the master left them. And it would be 
very hard to exaggerate the indescribable beauty and glory of 
this picture. The infant has a head, a face that fairly repre- 
sents a divine child, before whom at this moment all his life 
and death are present. For then, while a fair-haired boy in 
his mother's arms, the future was all before him : the shame, 
the sorrow, the agony : the scourge, the thorns, the cross : 
the desert, the garden and Calvary : all, all were on his heart 
when he hung on his mother's neck, or lisped his morning 
prayer at her knees. And beyond all other pictures of the 
child Jesus, this one presents him as an infant with years in his 
soul. As the image every lover of the Saviour forms in his 
own mind exceeds in majestic beauty whatever human art in 
marble or canvas can embody, so we are always disappointed 
with the types of the Man Christ Jesus which the greatest of 
the old masters have left for our study. It is so in some 
degree with the Virgin Mary. It does not seem to have come 
into the mind of any of these old masters that the Virgin was 



206 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

the only one of all living women who knew that this child was 
begotten of God ! ! The feeling to be shown in her face 
would be that of wonder and joy. The desire of all Jewish 
women had been answered in the birth of this boy, and she 
was Blessed above all human beings as the mother of Israel's 
Prince and Saviour. No one of the great Madonnas, the 
works of Raphael, Correggio, Carlo Dolce, Murillo, or of a 
hundred others, no one of them attempts to express these, 
which must have been the overpowering thoughts of her 
exalted and exulting soul ! Yet this face is full of tenderness, 
serenity, meekness and love. The sweetness of expression, if 
sweetness is capable of being expressed, has been as fully 
developed in this face as in any that was ever put upon canvas. 
But it is not in the face of the mother that the wonderful 
power of this work appears. Her figure, buoyed by its own 
lightness and floating firmly in the air; the adoring old man 
on his knees, and the bewitching, smiling Barbara on the 
other side, contrasted with the aged saint : the whole of the 
great picture in all its parts is so united as to produce the 
highest emotions of sacred pleasure in the beholder. It is 
like eloquence stirring to its deepest depths the soul of the 
hearer. This addresses the heart through the eye. It speaks 
as clearly and effectively as though it were put into words 
and they fell on the ear. 

There are many thousands of pictures in this gallery, and 
among so many some of wide renown, as paintings that 
are the property of the world. Several of Titian's best works 
are here. The greatest masters of the Dutch, the Flemish, 
the Italian and the Spanish schools are well represented, 
and a few weeks or months of study in the Dresden gallery 
will form an important part of one's art education. 



THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. 207 



THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. 

We were dining at Lucerne, in Switzerland. The elegant 
room was filled with two or three hundred guests. Not far 
from us, but on the opposite side of the table, were three 
gentlemen whose conversation it was impossible not to hear, 
so pronounced was every word they said. The one whose 
voice was the loudest, was speaking of the great superiority 
of things at home compared to what we had to put up with 
in foreign travel. The tone of his remarks, the swell, the 
self-conceit, the contempt for others' opinion, and the accent 
also, led me to say to myself, " There's another of those con- 
ceited Englishmen : was there ever such a people to pride 
themselves on what they have and are, and to despise every 
body and every thing besides." 

At this moment one of them asked him : 

" From what part of America do you come ?" 

Alas, he was a countryman of my own, and all my specu- 
lations and inferences had gone for nothing, and worse. 
The tables were turned against me. To the inquiry he 
answered : 

" From Boston : you have probably noticed that more 
Americans who are abroad come from Boston than any other 
part of America?" 

" And, pray, why is that ?" asked one of the gentlemen 
near him. 

" Because there are more people of wealth and culture in 
Boston than in any other American city : we have no class 
called the aristocracy, but the best families, the most refined 
and the most disposed and able to enjoy foreign travel, reside 
in Boston." 

In this strain of vulgar boasting, seeking to convey the 
impression that he was one of the people he described, this 
countryman of mine went on till I was heartily ashamed of 
him, and of my own first impressions as to his nationality. 

The next day I was at Andermatt, spending the night. A 
gentleman approached me and pleasantly remarked ; 



2oS IRE N ALUS LETTERS. 

" I think we were at table together at Lucerne last even- 
ing." 

"Yes," I replied, "you sat next to a countryman of mine 
from Boston." 

He laughed, and said, " He was from one of the first 
families, one of your aristocracy: but it was very character- 
istic, was it not ?" 

"Of what?" I inquired. 

" I beg your pardon," he said, "but we — the English — have 
an idea that you — Americans — are given to that sort of thing." 

" And we think," I replied, "just the same of you ; it is six 
for one, and half a dozen for the other." 

And so we chatted, coming to the sage conclusion that 
there are fools in all countries, and a fool at home is twice a 
fool abroad. 

At Interlaken we spent a week at the Hotel des Alpes. 
The company was very distinguished, the " first families" from 
Germany, Russia, France, and England. I was sitting one 
evening in the grand salon, on the same sofa with the Prin- 
cess of Russia, with whom I had no acquaintance, and of 

course we were not in conversation. An English gentleman, 
a pater-familias whose wife and children were around, came 
up, and addressing the Princess familiarly, said, " Shall I 
find a seat here ?" I moved along, and he crowded in between, 
and began with a series of questions to the lady : " Have you 
bene to London?" " Which of the theatres did you prefer?" 
" Did you attend any of the races while in England ?" 

The Princess gave him brief answers, and indicated that 
she had the true Russian dislike to England — she greatly 
preferred Paris and the French. He was equal to the occa- 
sion. "I am fond of Paris," he said; "I have spent three 
winters there while my daughters were pursuing studies, — 
they required instruction in languages, — but they were well 
educated before I brought them to Paris — they could follow 
the hounds with me — my oldest daughter will take any fence 
that I would go over, — splendid rider, — but they came abroad 
for languages" — and so on, till, wearied with his talk, I left 
him with the Princess, 



THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. 209 

The next morning he came into the breakfast-room lead- 
ing a bulldog — perhaps it was a half-grown pup — by a chain. 
It was an ugly-looking beast, that should have been kept in 
the stable. But he brought him to table, and the vile animal 
took a seat, on his haunches, in a chair by the side of his 
master. The wife came in, sat down on the other side of the 
dog, and pouring milk into a saucer, broke bread into it, and 
this fine old English gentleman and his wife and the beast 
ate their breakfast together! As breakfast was served on 
small tables, each family having one apart, there was no 
ground for complaint ; but as this English family sat within 
a few feet of me, the sight interfered with the quiet of my 
breakfast after it was eaten. It may be civilization for dogs 
to eat at their master's table in England, though I never saw 
it in practice there, but it is an insult to the decencies of 
human society for any man to take a big dog to a public 
breakfast-room, and seat him at the table. 

At dinner, when a hundred guests were at one long table, 
this fine old English gentleman led his dog in, and fastened 
him to his chair, to the danger of all and fear of many, for a 
bull-dog is not a reliable person when a stranger comes by. 
The master ordered champagne, and instead of having it 
opened by the servant who brought it, he startled the whole 
company by exploding it himself, and clapping his hand over 
the mouth of the bottle, sent the liquor in hissing streams in 
every direction. 

These are a few specimens of the manners of this gentle- 
man, — evidently, from the appearance of himself, his family, 
and associates, a man of standing and means ; but supremely 
selfish, having an utter disregard for the feelings of others, 
and intent solely upon his own importance. He cared more 
for that ugly beast of a bull-pup than for the comfort of all 
the human family, himself excepted. 

We had taken our seats in an omnibus to ride to the sta- 
tion. An elderly English lady with a maid entered its door, 
and not wishing to go to the upper end, the lady spoke out, 
" There's room enough if the people vt\\\ move up." A lady 
changed her seat to the other side of the coach and left so 



210 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

much room that the imperious woman bestowed her bag 
upon the seat. The lady who had relinquished her place, 
finding the window open, wished to return, and I said so to 
the woman, who did not move. I then took her bag and put 
it on the floor, saying " The lady is exposed to the draught 
and wishes to sit out of it." She caught up her bag, replaced 
it on the seat and positively refused to allow the lady to find 
a seat on the other side, though she had moved especially to 
oblige this selfish and unfeeling creature, who, having got 
what she wanted, did not care whether the delicate and kind- 
hearted lady suffered or not. 

We arrived at Baden-Baden from Switzerland. At the 
German frontier we suffered the usual, useless and cruel 
annoyance of a baggage search, a custom to be abolished by 
the millennium, but I fear not before. At the station in 
Baden an elderly English gentleman was unable to find his 
trunk and other traps : they were left behind : there was no 
doubt of that : his rage was amusing : when he had exhausted 
himself upon the officials, who, being Germans, did not not 
understand a word he said, he fell upon me : 

"Are you an Englishman?" he asked. 

" No, I am an American." 

" Then you speak the English," he broke out — these, these, 
these villains" — he used double-barreled oaths, sin- 
gle ones would not answer, where I have put those dashes, 

" these villains have lost my luggage, and here I am 

with nothing but what is on my back." 

I said to him, " Did you attend to it on the frontier, when 
we all had our luggage overhauled ?" 

" No, I heard nothing about it : did not know there was 
any examination : rascally treatment : I've been all over the 

world and never had this thing happen before : 

meanest country I was ever in." 

I did not remind him of my standing three mortal hours in 
Liverpool, in a stifling pen, waiting the pleasure of her 
Majesty to inspect my linen ; but I said to him that his lug- 
gage could easily be recovered, and by and by he stopped 
^wearing and resolved to try the telegraph, 



STUDIES IN TORTURE ROOMS. 211 

There was no apology for this fine old English gentleman 
indulging in coarse profanity in the midst of ladies, but there 
was justifying cause of real annoyance and complaint. He 
did not understand German, and when the passengers were 
ordered out to see their trunks opened, knew nothing that 
was said, and while others were attending to it, he was quietly 
reading his newspaper. His luggage was therefore detained, 
and he went on, only to find at the end of a day's journey 
that he had been robbed of all his goods by the government 
into whose protection he had come. 

Such people as I have been writing about, one meets daily in 
his travels. They serve to illustrate this very obvious remark, 
that it takes all sorts to make up a world ; and while there are 
national peculiarities there are also conceited, selfish, dis- 
gusting persons in all countries, not excepting one's own. 

There is no higher type of cultivated Americans than the 
Boston type, yet here I meet a traveled ass making the very 
name of our Athens ridiculous by his vanity and folly. No 
nation on earth has a more finished civilization than the 
English : their intelligence, culture and breeding easily place 
them as a people among the leaders of the world's progress. 
But the three examples that I have quoted above from my 
observations of the last few days might be types of the 
rudest and vulgarest people on the earth. There is no more 
agreeable person than the true English gentleman. And vice 
versa. 



STUDIES IN TORTURE ROOMS. 

Chambers of torture are not very agreeable school rooms. 
But I have been in so many of them, that I ought to have 
learned something besides the uses of these dungeons and 
pitfalls, and rings and rusty chains, and pulleys, and wheels, 
and spikes, and screws, and knives, and saws, and hooks, in 
which and by which men and women have been tortured to 
death, because their opinion differed from those who had the 



212 IRENMUS letters. 

power to starve, or stretch, or flay, or maim, or kill, the victim 
in their hands. 

We ought to learn to be charitable toward those who 
invented and used these terrible instruments of human agony, 
and with cruel hands applied them to the flesh and nerves of 
their fellow-men. Even the monster who could sit calmly by 
and guage the misery of their hapless victims, to know the 
measure of woe they might endure and yet live to undergo 
fresh torture, even these monsters may deserve charity. The 
spirit of the Master, who prayed for his crucifiers, requires of 
us to be charitable. But this is straining a point. They 
were men, and so are we who judge them now. If they were 
men, and yet capable of such crimes, we must be more than 
men to feel anything short of unmingled detestation when 
we remember their deeds, and look with horror upon the 
tools of their trade, and recount the virtues of those who 
suffered. 

We found these cheerful implements first at Baden-Baden. 
There, in the house that to this day is the Duke's royal resi- 
dence, we were led to the chamber of judgment, and saw the 
pitfall from which ione ever returned to reveal the mysteries 
of the depths below. The Castle of Chillon, on the shores of 
the lovely lake of Geneva, had its chamber of tortures, which 
was opened for our entertainment. We have passed by many 
without looking in upon them. When in search of pleasure it 
is not well to fill the eye and the mind with sights and thoughts 
that haunt one trying to go to sleep. But what has moved 
me to this present writing is the view of the Castle of Salz- 
burg in Austria. No scenery in Europe is more picturesque 
than this, and the view from the heights, crowned by the 
ancient castle, is magnificent beyond description. This was 
once the residence of prince-bishops, who were civil as well 
as spiritual powers n the world, and reigned with sceptres 
of iron and swords ^f steel over the people of this province. 
They were in the zenith of their power and pride when the 
Reformation shook their thrones, and roused them to use 
those means that Rome knows too well how to use if the 
prostrate people squirm and turn. Thousands of Protestants 



STUDIES /AT TORTURE ROOMS. 213 

were brought as sheep to the slaughter, and suffered linger- 
ing and awful deaths on these heights. The rack on which 
strong men and lovely women were stretched in agony- 
unspeakable still remains in the chamber of torture, and 
mutely testifies to the woes that were here endured in witness 
of the truth as it was and is in Jesus. 

We have all these chambers of horrors associated with the 
power of the Church of Rome. In some strongholds of 
chieftains they have been instruments of vengeance and 
oppression and extortion. But the Church of Rome is in its 
nature a persecuting power, and cannot be true to its princi- 
ples unless it uses all the power it has to compel men to 
believe as it believes. Its traditions all teach this fact. The 
entire history of the Church is witness that it believes in the 
right and duty of using force to conquer the convictions or 
to punish the obduracy of unbelievers. It has often charged 
these deeds upon the State, but the State has been the tool 
of the Church when it has shed the blood of martyrs. The 
Church has that blood in its skirts, and when God maketh 
inquisition for blood, he will discriminate between the agent 
and the principal, and will render to every one his due. 

Protestantism has shed the blood of its enemies. Let it be 
spoken with humiliation and shame. But such crimes in its 
history are exceptions, not the rule of its life. Extenuating 
circumstances might be urged in its behalf, but there is no 
justification in the sight of God or man for interference 
with the freedom of conscience. It is even now for an aston- 
ishment that Protestantism was so slow to discover the prin- 
ciple of religious liberty, and to practice upon it in the treat- 
ment of errorists. Erasmus understood it better than Luther 
or Calvin. And the death of Servetus at the hands of 
Geneva, if not of Calvin, will always require of us Protestants 
to speak with charity of the men who made hecatombs of 
martyrs, where Protestants have slain only here and there a 
victim. 

But when I have seen the relics of the inquisition in Rome, 
and the more fearful remains of it in Spain, and come to 
my own chamber from these castles and prisons that still 



214 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

retain the memorials of the bloody deeds of former times, I 
am not so much stirred with indignation towards the Church 
that encouraged and commanded the cruelties as I am 
distressed to think that human nature was and is capable 
of inflicting such wrongs upon its own kind. "Man's 
inhumanity to man !" That is the awful reflection that fills 
me with horror, as I know that human nature is the same 
now that it always was ; and what it wrought in the days 
when the bishops stretched helpless victims on this rack in 
Salzburg, it is just as ready to do to-day, if the opportunity 
and the motive combine. There the grand distinction 
between Romanism and Protestantism stands up gloriously 
in the eyes of the civilized world. We, who have thrown off 
the bondage of Rome, have learned that the soul of man must 
be left free in matters of religious faith and worship. They 
who still follow the lead of Rome have learned nothing since 
the Reformation. They have lost power, and have gained no 
knowledge. To them (it is so taught in the last Syllabus of 
the Pope), to them, it is still an elementary principle of gov- 
ernment that if a man will not believe as he ought, he must 
be made to. If he cannot be reduced to obedience he must 
be punished. We have got beyond all such terrible doctrines 
as that. It was such an idea that begat the Inquisition, and 
lighted all the fires of religious persecution, and shed the 
blood of saints through the ages. It is the same doctrine that 
the Turk holds, as he goes with fire and sword to convert 
the nations. His onquests have been made in the name of 
his religion, which is the more dreadful as the vital principle 
of his religion is enmity to the Cross of Christ. There is but 
one ism in the whole world worse than Mohammedanism. 
The worst is Romanism. It is worse than Islam because it 
boasts the Cross as its glory and defence, but in the name of 
that Cross wars against the fundamental principle of Christ's 
religion. It has put the work of man in place of the right- 
eousness of Christ, so that the Cross is of none effect. It has 
despoiled its followers of the liberty with which Christ makes 
his people free, and put chains of slavery upon the soul and 
mind of men. It is a war upon society. Education, liberty. 



THE LANCE OF ST. MAURICE. 21$ 

improvement, happiness and all that gives brightness and 
beauty to the age we live in, perish in the embrace of this 
system which calls itself Christianity, but has neither its form 
nor power. I noticed this while sojourning in Roman Cath- 
olic countries. They are dead while they live. And they 
come to life, and rise into the spirit and action of the age 
only so fast as they are emancipated from the bondage of the 
Church. France is free. Germany is free. Austria is more 
than half delivered from the slavish yoke. Italy revives. 
All Europe feels the awakening, and it may be that with the 
accession of a new Pontiff, the attitude of the Church toward 
modern society may be changed. At present she is just as 
hostile to freedom of thought and liberty of conscience as 
when she set up this rack in Salzburg. 

We must be charitable toward men ; but their systems 
deserve only justice. We may pity the victim of superstition, 
but the superstition we should denounce and if possible dis- 
pel. And this is the lesson to learn in these fearful schools 
of ancient torture. May God have mercy on the men who 
still defend the right to employ the arm of flesh to punish 
unbelief. But we also pray God to put a speedy end to the 
damnable doctrine, and so give Christian liberty to mankind. 



THE LANCE OF ST. MAURICE, 

AND OTHER SACRED RELICS IN THE VIENNA TREASURY. 

I am not a relic-hunter or worshipper. If I had a little 
more credulity, not to say faith, I would be more interested 
in seeing the precious things which superstition, in the name 
of religion, preserves with pious care. It is not required of 
us, who disbelieve and ridicule, to impeach the sincerity of 
those who receive as realities, and very holy realities, the 
memorials of those who have suffered in the faith. It is 
quite likely that they areas devout in their worship as we are 
in ours. Still it is very hard for a man with a head on his 



216 IRENES, US LETTERS. 

shoulders to receive as authentic a toe-nail of John the Bap- 
tist, or an arm-bone of the mother of her who was the mother 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such pretensions take us out of 
the region of probabilities into the possibles, and, without 
having the evidence, we shall be pardoned for rejecting the 
claim. Perhaps if we had the evidence, we should be more 
incredulous still. 

We are now in Vienna: the brilliant capital of Austria. 
The Austrian Emperor claims to be the successor of the 
Roman, and in the great cathedral here, we read on the hand 
of a statue of Frederick II., the letters A. E. I. O. U. It may 
seem to be a conceit to put the five vowels on his hand which 
holds a sceptre, as if he were the king in the world of letters. 
But his motto was in five Latin words, " Austria Est Impe- 
rare Orbi Universo ;" but there is very little probability that 
" Austria is to rule the whole world." It is a relic of Roman 
pride and ambition to make a motto in words that should 
include as their initials the five vowels and assert the supre- 
macy of Austria : an empire now scarcely a third-rate power 
in Europe. But it has a wonderful history, and much of its 
most wonderful history is associated with this holy lance and 
a nail from the cross on which Christ suffered, which is 
wrought into the point of the lance ! 

It is a spear of iron with a blade in the form of a lancet, a 
long socket with short vertically detached ears. A hole was 
pierced in the blade, probably during the reign of the 
Emperor Otho the Great, and a nail of singular form, said to 
be taken from the Cross of Christ, has been inserted therein. 
It is likely that by doing so the blade broke in the middle, 
and as a ligature consisting of thin plates of cast iron proved 
inefficient, it was found necessary to reinforce it by encircling 
the fracture with a band of iron. 

The Emperor Henry III. put over the iron band which 
covered the broken place and secured the nail (as we have 
already mentioned) a second band of silver, which for greater 
security was soldered on both edges, and solidly riveted 
besides. This silver band bears the following inscription : 
(on the front): "Clavus Domini, t Heinricus D-Igra Terciis 



THE LANCE OF ST. MAURICE. 21? 

Romano Imperator Aug Hoc Argentum Jussit ; (continua- 
tion on the back :) Fabricari ad Confirmatione Clavi dui et 
Lance(e) Sancti Mauricii ; (and in the centre :) Sanctus Mau- 
ricius." 

The lance remained in that state until the accession of the 
Emperor Charles IV. During the reign of this prince a plate 
of gold was riveted over the silver plate, laid on by Henry 
III., so as to cover it entirely. This plate bore the simple 
inscription in Gothic capital letters : " t Lancea et Clavus 
Domini." 

In the course of time, several rivets having become loose, 
the silver band of Henry III., of whose existence nobody had 
been aware, became visible. A closer examination showed 
that this band had been partly cut through a long time ago 
and that the lower part of the nail of the Holy Cross, which 
was concealed by the band, had been lopped off. This last 
alteration of the Holy Lance probably took place under 
Charles IV. This prince was passionately fond of collecting 
relics, and spared no effort to acquire them. It is said that 
at Treves he lopped off with his own hand a piece of the 
"Holy Cross" preserved there. It is probable that the 
embellishment of the lance with the plate of gold was the 
result of the Emperor's desire to cover the silver plate which, 
being partly destroyed, might not be easily restored, and to 
conceal from the eyes of the world the operation which had 
been performed on the nail of the Holy Cross. The new 
binding of silver wire that replaced the rotten leather straps, 
also dates from the same time. 

Who is not acquainted with the important part played by 
the Holy Lance in the history of the German Empire? By 
the discovery of the inscription proceeding from the Emperor 
Henry III., wherein this lance is mentioned as being identical 
with that of St. Maurice, our interest is heightened, as the 
lance of this Saint was already regarded during the Merovin- 
gian era as an emblem of majesty and power. 

In the Saxon history which Widukind, monk of the Abbey 
of Korvei, wrote for the imperial Matilda, abbess of Quedlin- 
burg, we find that the Holy Lance formed part of the insignia 



2i8 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

which the dying King Conrad (t 13 Dec. 918) delivered to 
Evurhard, his brother, to be given to Henry I. According 
to the Book of Retribution which the learned Luitprand 
began to write about the year 958, King Henry I. had extorted 
the Holy Lance from King Rodolph. Luitprand relates also 
that the Holy Lance had formerly belonged to Constantine 
the Great, and mentions it while relating a battle fought at 
Bierten on the Rhine by King Otho I. against his usurping 
brother Henry. King Otho, separated from his little army 
by the Rhine and unable to fly to its assistance, dismounted 
from his horse and fell on his knees together with his people, 
praying and weeping before the holy nails which had once 
pierced the hands of our Lord and Saviour and which were 
now placed in the Holy Lance. 

It is therefore probable that the holy nail was set in the 
lance during the reign of Otho I. According to the account 
given by Widukind of the defeat of the Hungarians on the 
Lechfeld (955), King Otho fought at the head of his army, 
carrying the Holy Lance as the standard of victory. After the 
King had cheered up his little army by encouraging speeches, 
he grasped his shield and the Holy Lance and led the charge 
against the foe, thus fulfilling his duty as a brave warrior and 
a skilful general. 

What high veneration was paid to this relic, and what im- 
portance was attached to its possession, became evident at 
the election of Henry II., the Saint (1002), who chiefly baf- 
fled the claims of both his rivals, Eckhard, Duke of Thurin- 
gia, and Herman II., Duke of the Alemanni, by persuading 
the Archbishop of Cologne, who, since the death of the 
Emperor Otho III., had the Holy Lance in his keeping, to 
deliver this sacred emblem of power to himself. It is now 
preserved with the Austrian Regalia and other treasures, 
and visitors are permitted to look upon it with such rever- 
ence as they may feel. 

If this sketch of the Lance's history is neither intelligible 
nor interesting, it ought not to be set down as my fault, for 
I have taken it almost verbatim from the Catalogue of the 
Treasure house, and would not vouch for the facts, though I 



THE LANCE OF ST. MAURICE. 2ig 

have no doubt of their correctness from the time that Otho 
the Great set the nail into his spear, and so sanctified it as a 
holy lance. Where he got the nail, or what right he had to 
claim that it was ever in the hand or foot of the Saviour of 
men, I do not know, and nobody else knows. But faith in it 
has wrought wonders : not miracles, but everything short of 
miracles. It removes mountains. It overcomes the world. 
It always was and will be the one distinguishing feature of 
men of achievement, and nothing great among men is done 
without it. This Holy Lance is neither the better nor the 
worse for the nail that is in it, but faith in it as the nail that 
pierced the cross on which the Saviour hung, made the onset 
of armies irresistible and gave victory to the legions that 
followed the leader who bore it. So Faith in the cross of the 
Redeemer, a living, saving faith, a real faith in the truth 
which that cross teaches and attests, is the only moral force 
that gives victory to the armies of the redeemed. They 
believe and therefore they fight on. To-day I saw two gigantic 
pictures by Rubens painted for the Jesuits of Anvers : one 
was Loyola casting out devils and the other was Xavier 
among the East Indians, raising the dead. I do not believe 
either of them ever did either. But the world knows what 
power those two men have wielded in the earth in the name 
of the Cross of Christ. And greater things than these have 
our humble missionaries done among the pagans of every 
clime, because they had faith in the Cross of Christ. 

There is only one piece of wood in the world claiming to be 
part of the original cross, that is larger than the one exhib- 
ited in this treasury. It is 25 centimetres long and 5 wide. 
If you will send to Randolph the Publisher, in New York, 
and get my brother's little book on the" Wood of the Cross," 
you will learn more of its history than I could give you in a 
dozen letters. And when you read it you will wonder with 
me that there is so much to be known about it. 

In addition to these two most precious relics, the nail and 
the wood, we are shown a piece of the Holy Table Cloth on 
which the Last Supper of our Lord was spread : a piece of 
the Holy Apron with which our Lord girded himself when 



2 20 IRE N ALUS LETTERS-. 

he washed the disciples' feet : a chip of the manger in which 
the Infant Saviour was born : a bone of the arm of St. Anne: 
three links of the iron chains by which the Apostles Peter, 
Paul, and John were fettered, and a tooth of John the Bap- 
tist. There are other relics here, but these are the most 
remarkable. Let us not ridicule the credulity that cherishes 
these things : we may pity it as superstition, and it is barely 
possible that we have ourselves some notions just as absurd. 



THROUGH THE TYROL. 

The iron has entered into the heart of the Tyrol, and we 
now go through it by rail. To the lover of the wild, secluded, 
picturesque, and romantic, it seems almost a desecration of 
the sacredness of nature to intrude upon the recesses of 
mountain solitudes, and disturb the peaceful valleys with the 
rush of the trains and the shriek of the whistle. But, in this 
practical age, all such sentimental preferences yield to the 
economies of the time, and we traverse Switzerland and even 
the Tyrol with railroad speed. 

The Tyrol is a mountainous region in the southern part of 
the Austrian Empire, to which it belongs. It touches Iu?ly 
on its lower border, and has the Alps on its bosom. The 
people resemble the Swiss in many of their modes and cus- 
toms, and the character of the scenery is not unlike that 
which we have enjoyed so much in the land of William Tell. 
They are a livelier lot, more addicted to music, dancing, and 
smoking; they drink about the same in quantity and quality, 
and are j ust about as poor. They speak the German language 
in the north, the Italian in the south, and a mixture of both 
with the French everywhere. Their dress is not as pictu- 
resque as it was once, for the contact with foreign travellers 
has led them to drop their beautiful costumes and to imitate 
the outside world in the toggery they wear. Still the men, 
many of them, stick to the breeches, with stockings from the 



THROUGH THE TYROL. 221 

knee to the ankle, and their big shoes with heavy soles, and a 
jockey hat set sideways on the head, and a feather or bunch of 
feathers surmounting the whole, will make a Tyrolese dandy, 
or, on a dilapidated scale, a peasant. The short gowns of the 
women, and jackets, — bodices I believe they are called, — 
with green stockings, a profusion of silver buttons or medals 
hanging about them — but I give it up, a woman's dress being 
beyond my art of writing. They are very interesting in their 
costume, but rarely seen in it in their native villages. When 
they go wandering over the world, as Tyrolese minstrels, they 
are greatly admired, and every one supposes there is a coun- 
try where all the men go about dressed as brigands, and 
the women as if they were at a fete. But take them at 
home, and they are just about as dirty, and homely, and 
unattractive as the poor peasants of any other country. The 
Tyrolese have a musical name and reputation, and with them 
is associated whatever is picturesque, and rural, and lovely, 
in an unsophisticated, simple, pastoral people. All of which 
is as near the fact, as the most of our impressions derived 
from the rosy romances of travellers and the flowery pages of 
poetry. 

No words will convey an extravagant idea of the beauty 
and sublimity of the scenery. It is more beautiful and less 
sublime than that of Switzerland. In an hour after leaving 
Munich, we reach the pass from which comes the river Inn. 
We are to follow up this stream into the heart of the Tyrol. 
A fortress commands the entrance of the valley, and the 
Schloss and the convent, and the church on the hill, speak 
to us at once of the religion of the people. Indian corn is 
raised in greater quantities than we had seen before in Eu- 
rope, and it was dried in a way quite novel. Torn from the 
stalk with the husks covering the ear, these were stripped 
down, and the ears hung across poles laid in rack form, up 
the sides of the houses, from near the ground to the eaves, 
so that the whole house was covered with this singular dis- 
play of farm produce. Some of the corn was yellow, some 
white, and the two colors were never mixed while thus sus- 
pended for drying. As we made our rapid journey along the 



2 22 IRE N^. US LETTERS. 

river Inn, winding up the mountains and surveying the vales, 
it was easy to say and to feel that we had never passed through 
lovelier scenes. In the midst of these autumnal harvestings, 
in which men, women, and children were taking their part, 
the near mountains were shining in their winter garments of 
snow, literally bathed in the light of heaven, and looking as 
though they were at its gates. Often we pass little chapels, 
with horrible pictures or statues representing the blessed 
Saviour's sufferings or the Madonna's motherly care. Now 
and then a cross has been set up to mark the spot where a 
mortal accident has happened ; and if the natives are thus 
reminded to be careful in driving, and also to be mindful of 
their mortality, they may serve some useful purpose. The 
mountains now begin to assume gigantic proportions and the 
scenery rises into grandeur. The Solstein shoots up ten 
thousand feet! On one side of it the face is almost perpen- 
dicular. It was here that Maximilian I. was saved from 
awful death by an angel or a chamois hunter, it is not settled 
yet by which. He was hunting on the mountain, and falling 
off this precipice, caught on the face of the rock ; and while 
hanging there, and just ready to fall and be dashed to pieces 
below, a deliverer appeared, and drew him to a place of safety. 
The peasants who saw the deliverance ascribed it to angelic 
interposition. Zips, the huntsman, said he saved the 
Emperor, but Zips was not a truthful man, and nobody but 
the Emperor believed him. 

In the midst of these snow-white mountains, on a lovely 
plain through which the river rushes rapidly, stands the 
ancient city of Innspruck. Its palace, university, monastery, 
churches and schools, and 14,000 people, make a town of 
wonderful interest in such a region as this. One has to reflect 
that these countries have a history that covers a thousand 
years, and often more, before he can realize the growth that 
has resulted in such fruits as these amid rugged hills and 
unlettered people. And it is true that in this church in the 
Tyrol, the Hofkirke, or Dom, or cathedral, we were more inter- 
ested than in any other we have yet seen in Europe. In the 
very midst of it stands a marble monument of immense pro- 



THROUGH THE TYROL. 223 

portions, on the summit of which is a statue of Maximilian I. 
in bronze. The sides of the monument are covered with bas- 
reliefs in marble, representing twenty-four scenes in the life 
of this Emperor. The exceeding delicacy of this work is 
astonishing, as it seems to be rather such tracery of sculpture 
as might be made in ivory, but is scarcely possible in marble. 

I could not find the Emperor falling down the precipice, 
and am inclined to believe that the legend is not deemed 
sufficiently authentic for permanent record with a pen of iron. 
But far more impressive than this memorial of the Emperor, 
were twenty-four life-size bronze statues of the illustrious 
men and women of the Austrian royal house. That they are 
portraits, there could not be a doubt. And it was with some- 
thing approaching to awe that I stood in the midst of these 
lines of statues, in armor or in queenly costume, of these cele- 
brated characters, from Clovis, King of France, down to Albert 
II. of Austria. In a church too ! They made it very solemn, 
and I had something of a superstitious feeling, as if the air 
was rilled with the spirits of these heroes of other times. 

I went back the next day to this church alone, and sat 
down among the memorials of these men and women, and 
spelled out the Latin and bronzed inscriptions at the feet of 
them, and read the names of Godfrey, and his valor in the 
Crusades, and of women who have made immortal names by 
their virtues and deeds. And all this in the old church in 
the heart of the Tyrol. 

The sacristan was very urgent to unfold the treasures of 
the Silver Chapel, which he did with evident pride, for it 
contained a statue in solid silver of the Virgin Mary and an 
altar of silver, and ornaments of many names in silver, and 
this chapel thus enriched is the mausoleum which Ferdinand 

II made for his wife Phillipine Welserof Augsburg, of whom 
we heard and saw many things to assure us that she was the 
best-favored lady of her time. The chapel is connected with 
the palace by a private passage over the street, so that the 
royal family can drop in and attend service at any time with- 
out going out of doors. 

But the most modern statue in the church is the most 



224 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

interesting. It is that of Andre Hofer, the hero of 1809. He 
was a peasant inn-keeper, and when Austria and France were 
at war, he put himself at the head of the Tyrolese soldiery 
and drove the French out of the country. He entered Inn- 
spruck as a conqueror, and played king in the palace for six 
weeks, but living as a simple peasant all the while. The next 
year Napoleon drove him out, took possession of the city, 
and when he caught Hofer had him shot. The Tyrolese 
afterwards got his body, and, burying him with all the hon- 
ors, set up this splendid statue to their peasant hero, under 
the same roof that covers the monuments of the royal line. 

We made an excursion from the city into the villages and 
among the farms in the valley. The people were busy with 
their fall crops. Everybody was at work. The men and 
women sat on the ground husking corn. The cows were 
harnessed to wains, in which the harvests were carried home. 
We called at the church door of the old monastery. It had 
a magnificent interior. The ceiling was rich with gilt and 
frescoes. Beautiful paintings adorned the side chapels and 
the high altar. The spacious house looked as though it were 
kept for show, and had never been used, so clean, fresh, and 
glowing was the whole. Such was the appearance, also, of 
the more splendid chapel in the monastery on the heights at 
Prague. 

Tunnels — twelve or fifteen of them— pierce the mountains 
up which we climb, as we go by way of the Brenner pass, 
from Innspruck to Italy. The descent is more rapid and 
more fearful. We fairly rush amain down. Ruined castles 
tell of feudal wars. Wolfensteins was a stronghold 600 years 
ago. A modern fortress at Mittewald puts to shame these 
ancient towers, which were only castles of cards if powder 
and ball had been spent upon them. Brixen has been the 
See of an archbishop these last nine centuries ! The Bene- 
dictine monastery of Seben is near the village of Klausen, 
and the Capuchin Convent, with the Loretto chapel, rich in 
treasures of the Church. For this Tyrol has played no poor 
part in Roman Catholic history. We stop at Botzen, and 
hasten on to the city of Trent. The Council of Trent every 



A CHURCH AND A PICTURE. 225 

one has read of, but every one does not remember that the 
city in which that famous Council was held is in the Austrian 
Tyrol. Its former importance as the capital of the Tyrol 
has indeed passed away, but it is still a magnificent place, 
with evidence of its ancient greatness in its decayed palaces 
and ruined castles. Its cathedral is of pure marble. And now 
it is the favorite resort of princes in the Church, of scholars 
and titled dignitaries. The Council that held its sessions 
here from 1545 to 1563, a term of eighteen years, had some 
four hundred cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, professors, 
etc., and made its mark in the history of religion and the 
world. 

This is the last town of importance we pass through in the 
Tyrol. We are not long in going hence to Verona, and then 
w r e are in Italy. 

And so we pursue our devious way from land to land, pil- 
grims and strangers, seeking always a better country. Not 
the Tyrol or Switzerland, where Nature, that is God, has all 
his mightiest works outdone. Not Italy, where art makes 
canvas breathe and marble speak. Not the Holy Land, 
whose acres were pressed by the feet that " were nailed to 
the tree for our advantage." But a better country, even a 
heavenly : a city that hath foundations, whose builder and 
maker is God. 

Its gates are made of Orient pearl ; 

Its windows diamond square : 
Its streets are paved with beaten gold ; 

O God ! If I were there ! 



A CHURCH AND A PICTURE. 

It was the hour of High Mass in the Milan cathedral. 
We had been led to seats near the great altar, where we 
could see and hear the service. For, in this vast edifice, 
those at a distance cannot enjoy anything but the music. 



226 lREN^EUS LETTERS. 

It is a glorious pile, this wonderful work of human genius, 
taste, and skill. Many think it the most impressive and 
sublime of all the sacred edifices in Europe. It is the most 
beautiful. It is not the most sublime. Charles V. would 
have put the Burgos cathedral under glass, if he could, to 
keep it as a thing of beauty to look at. This is more beau- 
tiful outwardly : the interior of Burgos church is more lovely 
than this of Milan. The cathedral of Seville is the most 
overwhelming in its effect upon the worshipper, of any house 
of God in which I have stood. Going into it at noonday, 
from the brilliant sunshine of a Spanish sky, I exclaimed 
with devout emotion, " Surely this is none other than the 
house of God." It is not needful that we worship after the 
manner of those who build these temples, or to be in sym- 
pathy with their ideas of the ways and means by which the 
Father is to be approached with the petitions of his children. 
They are sincere, and God looks upon the heart. So that I 
sat before this altar and sought to worship in spirit and truth, 
while compelled to believe that those around me were far 
out of the way. But the temple is glorious in its architec- 
ture, if not in the holiness of its service. As the warm sun- 
light streamed in through the paintings on the windows, 
and lay among the arches and illumined the lofty ceiling, 
whose tracery, at the great distance from which we view it, 
looks like lace-work under the roof, my eyes would wander 
away from the idolatry of the Mass to the temple, itself an 
expression of prayer and praise ! This house stands here to 
proclaim the pious purpose of them who built it, and of them 
who cherish it from age to age, as the monument of their 
devotion. It is not, and no church is, simply a building in 
which the people are to be taught the way to heaven. This 
vast cathedral and every church is, or should be, the offering 
of the people to God of a house in which he will record his 
name and visit those who draw near unto Him. 

Four hundred and ninety years it has been in progress of 
building, for its foundations were laid in 1386, and each suc- 
ceeding year, since the first white marble stone was set, has 
added to its beauty. It is 486 feet long, and that delicate 



A CHURCH AND A PICTURE. 227 

groined ceiling is 153 feet above the floor from which we 
look up to it. It is surrounded with glittering white marble 
pinnacles, each pinnacle surmounted by a statue : number- 
less niches, without and within, are also filled with statues, 
and Scripture scenes are carved in stone adorning the walls, 
and the number of the statues is so great that no one tries 
to count them. Taking a section, I soon counted 150, and 
the proportion of that section to the whole space would 
make the total number about 10,000. Some have estimated 
the number to be only 4,000. There are niches still vacant, 
and room for more stories from the Bible, in stone. The 
work will go on from age to age, for such an edifice as this 
will never be perfect ; the only one that is perfect is the house 
not made with hands. 

We walked behind the high altar, when a priest who had 
just been officiating, and was still clad in his vestments for 
the service, asked if we would descend into the vaults and 
visit the shrine of St. Charles Borromeo. He was Arch- 
bishop of Milan in the sixteenth century. The fame of his 
benevolence and piety is still fresh in all Italy. Memorials 
of him mee 1- the eye in many places besides this, which was 
his peculiar see. 

The priest lighted a taper and led the way into the subter- 
ranean chapel. It was a strange and sudden transition from 
the grandeur of the temple to this cold, silent, gloomy vault. 
But when the priest lighted the row of candles in front of 
the solid silver coffin, the chapel in which we stood was all 
ablaze with silver, gold, and precious stones. He pointed to 
the many costly decorations of this chamber of death, as if 
he were the showman of the place, and then seizing the 
handle of a crank, he turned it round and round, to lower 
gradually the front side of the coffin. The row of lighted 
candles shed a ghastly light upon the strange spectacle 
within. There lay the mummied body of the sainted bishop 
in his robes of office, all but the mitre which was at his feet, 
and the grim skeleton skull was slightly raised and staring at 
us as we stood before it ! What good purpose is to be served 
by such an exhibition, and why the sensibilities of mankind 



228 IRENJEUS LETTERS, 

should be shocked and disgusted by the exposure of remains 
of a dead man, it is impossible to say. That the ignorant 
multitude suppose there is a holy virtue still resident in the 
relics of the saint was very evident : for a portion of the 
roof of this underground chapel was open, making a way to 
the floor of the cathedral above, and, being surrounded by a 
railing, the people were constantly kneeling around it and 
praying to the saint in the vault below. This is the super- 
stition of the Romish Church. As ignorance is the mother 
of such devotion, it would never be permitted to the more 
intelligent priesthood to disenchant the vulgar herd of their 
delusion that dead saints may be their intercessors with God. 
The courteous priest who was acting as undertaker to us, 
was quite as solemn in his voice and movements as though 
he were administering the holiest rites of his Church, and I 
would not do him the injustice to suppose that he thought 
it a mockery of death to make a show of a mummied bishop 
and to take the fee of a dollar, as he did, for his services in 
the tomb. Having extinguished all the candles, he led us up 
stairs into the cathedral, and in a few minutes I saw him 
engaged at the altar. We must not be uncharitable, but it is 
a dreadful draught upon one's benevolence to believe that 
enlightened men, of the highest mental culture, can put any 
faith in the efficacy of relics of the dead. And here, in the 
midst of the richest display of art in the magnificent temple 
itself and its decorations, with sculpture and painting, these 
men of letters and thought, full-grown men, continue to show 
the towel with which the blessed Saviour washed his dis- 
ciples' feet, a rag of the purple robe with which he was clad 
in mockery, four of the thorns out of that cruel crown, one 
of the rugged nails that fastened him to the cross, and a 
fragment of the spear that pierced his side ! It is a sort of 
sacrilege to record such words, and one feels a relief to turn 
to the bones of the prophets and to be told that here are 
teeth from the head of Abraham, Elisha, Daniel and John ! 
In Munich we saw a case in which was preserved and duly 
labelled a bone from each one of the twelve disciples of our 
Lord, and having seen this select assortment, my curiosity is 



A CHURCH AND A PICTURE. 229 

not excited by any subsequent demonstrations in sacred 
anatomy. 

"THE LAST SUPPER." 

Twenty-four years ago I came to the church of Santa 
Maria delle Grazie in Milan, to see Leonardo da Vinci's 
greatest painting, and perhaps the most celebrated picture 
ever made. It is on the wall of the refectory of the Domini- 
can convent attached to the church. It was then fading 
away, and I wrote of it : " It is now nearly gone, and the 
next generation will know it only in history." But I have 
come here with some of that next generation to see it once 
more, and find it as it was, if anything less dim and indis- 
tinct than then. Two young men who were with me then, 
are now, I trust, with their Saviour and mine. I remember 
how deep were their emotions as they looked on this face of 
the ideal Jesus, the only face in which are blended the 
majesty and love we would see presented in a portrait of the 
Man of Sorrow and the King of Kings. Very few persons 
can say they have seen it twice with an interval of a quarter 
of a century. It is therefore well to bear this testimony that 
no perceptible change has come over it in these long years. 
In the centuries that have elapsed since it was painted on 
the wall, the room has been used and abused so shamefully 
that the preservation of the picture is almost miraculous. 
The storms of heaven and the tempests of war have beaten 
in upon it. Horses have been stabled on the floor, and 
ignorant monks have cut a door through the painting itself. 
Dampness and neglect might long since have destroyed it, 
but it survives, and more glorious in its ruin than the Par- 
thenon or the Colosseum, it still displays the loftiest and 
best human conception of the Man Divine. 

It is not probable that I shall ever see it again. But there 
is a nobler temple than the Milan cathedral : and this won- 
derful picture is not an image of the Heavenly ! 

" There the dear Man, my Saviour, sits, 
The God ! how bright he shines !" 

When shall I wake and find me there. 



230 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 



AMPHITHEATRES AND THEATRES. 

The old Romans — I mean the Romans of old — were great 
builders. When we put up a ricketty wooden building that 
will furnish seats to five or ten thousand people, we think 
we have done something. But in the amphitheatre of Milan 
thirty thousand people could have reserved seats around an 
arena in which an army could stand. When it was flooded 
with water, mimic naval battles were fought in the presence 
of the multitude. Its stone seats and terraces in which seats 
were placed, have been preserved, restored indeed from time 
to time, so that it is now the finest circus ground, perhaps, 
in the world. Fetes are celebrated in honor of distinguished 
visitors with as much splendor as when the builders were the 
masters of Milan. Frederick Barbarossa laid the city in 
ruins in the year 1162, and whether the amphitheatre was 
built before or after, I have no means at hand of ascer- 
taining. 

At Verona is the best preserved specimen of an ancient 
Roman amphitheatre. It dates in the reign of Titus, who 
destroyed Jerusalem. It has therefore stood during all the 
centuries of the Christian dispensation. It is an ellipse, 
five hundred and ten feet long and four hundred and twelve 
feet wide at the middle of it : forty tiers of solid stone rose, 
one above the other, on which 25,000 spectators sat, every 
one of whom could see the whole of the wide arena below. 
It was open to the sky : and in this delightful climate there 
is less need of a roof than in colder regions where there are 
more frequent rains. Beneath the tiers of stone seats, which 
rise 120 feet from the arena, there are dens and dungeons for 
wild beasts, and captives and convicts, and all the prepara- 
tions necessary for " a Roman holiday.'* In this arena the 
city was regaled with sports that met their tastes, and these 
were such as required the shedding of blood. The gladiators 
who fought to the death made the play in which the people 
most delighted. A convict sentenced to contend with wild 
beasts, as Paul did, would get praise for himself, and please 



AMPHITHEATRES AND THEATRES. 23 1 

the populace, if he fought bravely with a lion from the 
African desert. And in the dens of this old theatre beasts 
were held, and the alleys are as perfect now as they were when 
the hungry lions rushed through them, leaping into the 
arena for the Christian martyrs whom they tore limb from 
limb. The sand drank up the blood of the saints, and a 
modern circus or a troop of mountebanks now make a few 
hundred people merry where thousands once applauded to 
the echo when some brave fellow's life-blood oozed upon the 
ground. 

The Colosseum at Rome had seats for eighty thousand. 
It is the most imposing monument remaining of Old Rome. 
Its history is a part of the history of the Church and of the 
world. Its dedication cost the lives of 5,000 beasts and 
10,000 men who were killed in the games that amused the 
people and consecrated the theatre, in the first century of 
the Christian era! What hecatombs of human sacrifices 
were here offered! How often the martyrs went up to 
heaven from this arena in sight of a heathen multitude amused 
with their dying struggles, but unconscious of the joy that 
martyrs knew in the midst of agonies unspeakable. 

I have mentioned these three amphitheatres as the great- 
est examples remaining of the places of amusement which 
civilized people enjoyed one and two thousand years ago, for 
the sake of contrasting them with the entertainments of 
modern times. The ancients did not confine themselves to 
gladiatorial fights and human sacrifices. They had their 
stage, on which tragedy, comedy, and music make entertain- 
ment for those who enjoy more artistic and aesthetic pleas- 
ures than the arena affords. Roscius, who was the Garrick 
of Rome when Cicero was its greatest orator, boasted that 
he could express an idea more vividly, and with greater 
variety of form, by signs or gestures, than the master of 
eloquence could with words. The stage was popular in 
Rome, and so it was in Athens, when the Olympic games 
drew hundreds of thousands to see the races. The plays of 
the great masters, which scholars read in our day with as 
much satisfaction as they had to whom they were first pre- 



232 JRENjEUS letters. 

sented, — those creations of Euripides and Eschylus, not to 
speak of Aristophanes, — were performed in the open air, on 
marble platforms, in the midst of applauding thousands. The 
performance of any one of them, in a good English, French, 
German or Italian translation, would empty any theatre in 
New York, London, Paris, Berlin, or Italy, sooner than read- 
ing the riot act would disperse a mob. They were given in 
the daytime, when business might be supposed to occupy the 
people ; and it is doubtful if the best of Shakespeare's plays 
would draw a crowd in the daytime in New York or London. 
It might in Boston, where Mr. J. T. Fields's friend says 
there are not twenty men living who could have written 
Shakespeare's plays. 

In ancient Rome, and in other cities, the entertainments 
in the amphitheatre were often given to the people at the 
expense of candidates for office, who thus made themselves 
popular with the masses. Immense sums of money were 
spent in this catering to the vulgar herd. It paid very well, 
as it does now, though the money is expended in other ways. 
Great men, in those days of old, took pride in competing for 
victory in the arena with common wrestlers and fighters, 
just as a nobleman now and then rides his own horse in a 
race, with trained jockeys on the other horses. A few days 
ago, at Paris, one of the nobility did so : was convicted of 
cheating, too, and sentenced to abstain from racing for one 
year ! And this brings us naturally to compare the old-time 
pastimes with the present, and to ask wherein we have made 
improvement. 

Human life is more sacred now in the eyes of all civilized 
peoples than it was when blood was shed in sport to enter- 
tain the multitude. In Spain the people still love to see 
blood flow, and if it be the blood of a man or a bull they 
care very little which, provided it comes in a good square, 
stand-up fight. But Spain is far behind the rest of the world, 
and persecutes the Protestant saints, and rejoices in bloody 
sports. When she learns enough of the Christian religion 
to let the people worship God as they please, she will also 
abolish the bull-ring. That peculiar institution is the near- 



AMPHITHEATRES AND THEATRES. 233 

est approach to these old Italian gladiatorial and wild beast 
fights now left in Europe, and is gradually declining. But 
when we keep away from partially-civilized Spain, we find 
the people amusing themselves mainly in three different 
ways : they may run together somewhat, and the lovers of 
one sort may take to the others, but, with one or the other 
of them, the great mass of people who live for pleasure find 
their delight : they find it in drinking exhilarating bever- 
ages, in frequenting theatres, or in horse-racing. How much 
intemperance in drink prevailed in the days of Augustus 
Caesar we may not know. There was enough, no doubt. 
Bacchus had worshippers uncounted. But no American has 
any adequate conception of the amount of drinking for the 
pleasure of it : drinking beyond the wants of life : social and 
jovial drinking : till he travels in Europe. The statistics of 
intemperance in the United States show that we are as hard- 
drinking a people as there is, but we must go to the German 
beer-gardens in New York, and the haunts of our foreign 
population, to see how fearfully and freely men drink. And 
when we travel in Europe the drinking is so largely done 
out-of-doors, or in such public places as to be always in 
sight. In Germany it is horrible beyond exaggeration. In 
many of the railway stations, the only waiting-room pro- 
vided is filled with tables and chairs for the beer guzzlers, 
men and women. " The inevitable beer-garden" becomes a 
familiar remark as we visit a palace or a ruin, and find the 
little tables and chairs inviting us to be refreshed. The 
Italians drink : the French drink : the English drink beer 
immensely : the Irish and Scotch their whisky : but the beer 
drinking of Germany excels them all. 

One thing I have learned about the theatres and operas in 
their favor: they begin the evening performance at an early 
hour in Germany, sometimes at half-past six, often at seven, 
and get through before or by ten o'clock. This is so far, so 
good. Of the character of the performances I can speak 
only from the handbills and reports ; but they are as in the 
United States, no better, no worse, and often the same. 
Adelina Patti is coming to Milan next week to open the 



234 IRENJZUS letters. 

opera season, and she sings in " La Traviata" as the begin- 
ning : what will be the end ? What may be called the legiti- 
mate drama is as dead in Europe as it is in the United States. 
The million do not care a straw for a moral or sensible play : 
it is amusement they want, and there is no fun in being 
instructed. But there are more theatres now than ever, and 
in Paris and Vienna (I believe) the stage receives partial 
support from the government as the Church does. It is 
quite possible that the theatre is more demoralizing at this 
moment, than the amphitheatre was when the sand was 
soaked with human gore, and the death of men, women, and 
wild beasts made the amusement of the populace. 

The horse race is fast becoming a general popular amuse- 
ment in the United States, but it has not there attained the 
position it holds in Europe. The British Parliament, the 
most dignified legislative body in the world, adjourns over a 
day every year to permit its members to attend a horse race. 
The American Congress has never yet manifested so much 
interest in the subject. The pious Emperor of Germany, 80 
years old, honors Baden-Baden with his presence when the 
great horse-races of the year take place. The French 
Emperor or President always attends, and on Sunday. It is 
well known in England and France that no race occurs with- 
out the vilest cheating : and when we know that Lord Fal- 
mouth has pocketed $150,000 this season, by winning bets on 
horses, it is easy to see that it pays to bribe a jockey with 
even $25,000 to let his horse get beaten. Nothing is done at 
Newcastle or at Epsom that is not done on a smaller scale at 
Jerome Park, and the morals of the people are quite as much 
exposed to corruption, in the cruel and immoral sport of 
horse-racing, as they were in the ancient bloody games of the 
amphitheatre. 

" Hence we view" that things have improved a little, not 
much, since the days of the Caesars. There are more good 
people now, and the wicked people are not quite so fierce 
and bloody : but the great mass of mankind who want amuse- 
ment, instead of instruction, and who go about to find it, 
are little better in their tastes or morals than they were two 
thousand years ago. 



A CONVENT ON THE SEA. 235 



A CONVENT ON THE SEA. 

" There is a glorious city in the sea, 
The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, 
Ebbing and flowing ; and the salt sea-weed 
Clings to the marble of her palaces. 
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, 
Lead to her gates." — Rogers, 

Among the hundred islands around and under Venice, not 
one has a more remarkable history than San Lazaro. 

The story of Venice is too familiar for recital. The bar- 
barous Huns came down upon Venitia, and the people hid 
away among the islands of the great lagoon that sets up from 
the Adriatic Sea. Seventy-two of these islands were so near 
each other that the houses were separated only by narrow 
streams. These were soon canals : boats and bridges made 
them all into one great city : palaces arose with the rising 
prosperity of the place; a peculiar city, every house in it 
being accessible by land and water. The remoter islands 
were sites for public buildings, fortresses and asylums. Float- 
ing in the water, in the far eastern quarter of the great lagoon, 
is the isle of Saint Lazarus. As far back in time as A. D. 
1 1 82, it was used as a hospital for lepers coming from the 
East. Lazarus was the patron saint of such people, and the 
island took his name. By-and-by this disease ceased to be a 
plague, and the island became a desert. And so it remained 
for centuries : a wilderness in the midst of isles of beauty, as 
fair a spot as the sun shines on, but with the taint of the leper 
upon it, and so left alone in the sea. 

Five hundred years roll along, and a dozen wayfaring men 
of the East, speaking an Oriental tongue, and wearing the 
garb of an order of Monks unknown in Venice, came to this 
city and asked its hospitality. They had a strange story to 
tell. The hearts of strangers opened to the pilgrims, and 
they were taken kindly in. Their leader, Mekhitar, was an 
Armenian, born in Asia Minor. In childhood he was taught 
by the Monks of Garmir-Vauk, He grew up to be a priest, 



23 6 IRMNEUS LETTERS. 

and travelling widely in Asia, he preached the Christian 
religion, especially to the Armenians. His sacrifices and 
toils in this service were marvellous. At length he went to 
Constantinople, and, being compelled to leave, he retired to 
the Convent of Passen, near to his native place. Here he 
rose to be a distinguished teacher; a wonderful example of 
heroism in the midst of the plague. Again he appeared in 
the city of the Sultans, preaching the union of all sects in 
the Church of Rome. And when they would not listen 
to his words, he formed a society of men of his way of think- 
ing, and set up a printing press to issue good books among 
the people of the East. His piety and labours excited per- 
secution, and he fled with his companions, to the Grecian 
Morea, then under the Venetian government. At Modon a 
regular order was founded, with a convent and church. But 
the Turks came down upon the Morea with fire and sword, 
and drove the Monks of Modon from their home, which was 
plundered and destroyed. They took refuge on a Venetian 
vessel and begged a passage to the city long known as the 
Queen of the Adriatic, and the favorite of St. Mark. They 
found a welcome in the Republic of Venice. To the new Order 
of Monks, thus suddenly introduced, the Senate granted this 
desolate island. There, on the spot where, five centuries 
before, only lepers had a home, these persecuted and weary 
wanderers pitched their tents, and were at rest. Some ruins 
of old buildings remained, and these were patched up for 
temporary use. In 1740 the new monastery was completed, 
and the monks were able to pursue with vigor and success 
the benevolent work to which their lives are devoted. In 
this calm retreat, on an island every foot of which is covered 
by their convent and its gardens, in sight of the most pic- 
turesque and strangely beautiful city of the world, these 
brethren live, labour, die, and are buried. They do not lead 
a life of idleness. Teaching, preaching abroad, writing and 
printing, they are spreading knowledge among the Armenians 
in the East, to whom they send trained men and the books 
they publish. 

I have just returned from an excursion to this island mon- 



A CONVENT ON THE SEA. 237 

astery. Descending the marble steps of the hotel that lead 
into the water, we take our seats in a gondola, the water 
carriage of Venice. Silently, smoothly and swiftly we are 
borne out into the lagoon. The sun in the East is lighting 
up every marble palace, and dome, and pinnacle, and tower. 
The city, as we recede from it toward the sea, blooms with 
beauty, and makes real the idea of the poet that it is a flower 
on the sea. We glide softly to the landing steps at the gar- 
den of the convent. A monk, in the black gown and leathern 
girdle of his Order, bids us welcome. Kindly he leads us into 
the house, and presently to the library. It is rich in manu- 
scripts and Oriental books. Portraits and busts, and monu- 
ments of illustrious men, adorn the halls and the walls. An- 
cient coins, papyrus, a veritable Egyptian mummy, copies of 
all the books ever printed here, are shown. We were led 
into the printing office, where compositors were busy setting 
type in the Eastern languages. They use only the old-fash- 
ioned hand presses, and probably never saw one driven by 
steam power. The room was small, the typesetters few. An 
air of perfect repose pervaded the place. It would take two 
months at least to issue one edition of the New York Observer 
with this force. As I looked on, I thought of the fits Mr. 
Cunningham (our printer) would have if things moved at 
that rate in the office, 37 Park Row. 

In the refectory, tables were set for about fifty persons: 
very neatly were they laid, with bread and a bottle of native 
wine at each plate. All eat here in common, and in perfect 
silence, while one of the brethren stands in a pulpit and reads 
aloud the Bible. A notice above the door bids all to be 
silent and hear the word of God. 

There are only a dozen resident monks. They receive 
students from the East, who come at the age of about twelve, 
stay the same number of years, pursue a course of literature 
and theology, and then go back to their native countries as 
priests and teachers. Thirty youths are thus in a constant 
course of training. The monks also keep up a college in the 
city of Venice, and one in Paris. Some of them are sent 
on missionary tours through foreign countries. The works 



238 IR^ENEUS LETTERS. 

they publish are in many tongues, and some are of great 
value. 

The Armenians are divided in their religious faith, a part 
adhering to the Roman Catholic Church, to which section 
these Mekhitarists belong. When the monasteries of Italy 
were suppressed, this one alone was suffered to go on with 
its work. All the rest were merely consuming without pro- 
ducing, and so were a burden and a nuisance. This one con- 
sumes little and produces much. 

When the Monk had shown us through the apartments, 
he asked us to inscribe our names in the visitors' register. 
Kings and emperors had written theirs, philosophers and 
great travellers, poets, our Bryant among them, and Byron, 
who in one of his freaks, spent six months in the convent 
studying the Armenian language. As we walked out into the 
garden, the Father plucked the flowers freely, and gave to 
each of the ladies of the party a bouquet, as a souvenir of the 
Convent on the Sea. 



A CEMETERY BENEATH A CEMETERY. 

" A waking dream awaits us. At a step 
Two thousand years roll backward." 

— Rogers* Italy. 

The city of Bologna is widely known for its sausages, yet 
no one city of Italy has produced more men of renown in the 
finer arts. Domenichino's works fairly rival Raphael's. An- 
nibale and Ludivico Carracci, brothers, were born here and 
when the latter became too proud to admit his humble 
parentage, Annibale made a picture of their father on his 
bench threading a needle, and sent it to his brother. Guido 
Reni was a native of this city, and few masters have a brighter 
fame than he : then there were others scarcely less brilliant 
than they, Albana, Guercino and Lanfranca, and one of 
the greatest of sculptors, a giant and the maker of giants, 
Giovanni, or John of Bologna. 



A CEMETERY BENEATH A CEMETERY. 239 

In the Academy of Fine Arts, the works of these and 
other illustrious men are exhibited, and the city may well be 
proud of its own productions. It is a very ancient town. Its 
freshness is the result of a goodly custom that might well be 
imitated : it is divided into parishes, and once in ten years 
each parish has a festival ; some in one, some in another 
year ; at which time every house in the parish is put in good 
order, cleansed externally, and then decorated with banners, 
crosses and flowers. Thus the whole city once in every ten 
years is made as good as new. 

Its university has been famous since its foundation. It 
claims to be the mother of all universities, being itself born 
in 1 1 19, making it more than 750 years old. It had 10,000 
students in the year 1216. The city of Prague had at one 
time 40,000 students in its University, which was founded in 
1350. This one at Bologna had female professors, as well as 
men, and among the lady teachers was Novella, daughter of 
the learned lawyer Andreas, a woman so beautiful that, when 
she delivered her lectures to the students, she sat behind a 
curtain, lest her beauty should divert the thoughts of the 
young gentlemen from the lessons of law she was laying 
down. 

But more remarkable than its 130 churches and twenty 
convents, and uncounted palaces and its long arcades, is its 
Campo Santo, the cemetery, which in Italy is the Holy Field, 
as in Germany it is God's Acre. The dead sanctify the 
ground in which they lie. To disturb the dead is sacrilege 
in all lands. We drove to the gate of St. Isaiah, to a covered 
walk, an arcade, leading in two directions : to the left it went 
up a long and winding way to the summit of a hill, a mile off, 
where stands a church that is named from a picture fabled 
to have been painted by St. Luke : to the right is the walk 
to the Campo Santo of Bologna, the most extensive, remark- 
able, and interesting in Italy. An ancient Carthusian mon- 
astery, with its corridors and cloisters, its gardens, courts and 
quadrangles, was converted into this extraordinary mauso- 
leum. In the open ground, under the bright skies, interments 
are made, but no monuments are there set up. The enclosed 



240 IREN^US LETTERS. 

marble halls and low galleries are filled with statues and 
other monuments of the dead. Rich families vie with each 
other in the magnificence and costliness of these luxurious 
memorials of their departed friends. Some of them are 
exceedingly elaborate and beautiful, the highest skill of 
modern art being exhausted in their production. Many fam- 
ilies distinguished in letters, in arts, in arms : men of eminence 
as professors, and women illustrious for their benevolence, 
are here presented in marble that seems to breathe the names 
and virtues of their original. These galleries of sculpture 
are perhaps miles in length, and to walk through them all 
was more than our strength would allow. Filled with won- 
der and admiration, we were yet to learn a greater wonder 
than we had seen. 

In making excavations for this cemetery, it was found that 
the grounds of the old monastery covered another cemetery, 
more than twenty feet below the surface, and dating to a 
period in the distance to which no records refer. Here was a 
cemetery beneath a cemetery : the dead of one age pressing 
upon the dead of forgotten ages. As soon as the fact was 
ascertained, the work of excavation was cautiously conducted, 
with exceedingly interesting and important results. These 
results were transferred to the Museum, where I have just 
been studying them with profound astonishment and instruc- 
tion. 

The Roman-pagan ideas of the departed are here exhibited, 
as if the burial were taking place before our eyes, instead of 
the resurrection of the bones of the dead. Standing upright 
at the head of perfect skeletons, were grave-stones on which 
Latin inscriptions, worn and wasted indeed, are dimly visi- 
ble, recording the very name that this anatomy once bore, 
when it walked these streets and fields three thousand years 
ago. The skeletons lying flat on their backs, their arms by 
their side, or crossed -on the breast, as the surviving friends 
preferred, have been taken up with the clay bed on which they 
were found reposing. Placed in boxes and covered with 
glass, all the surroundings restored as they were when the 



A CEMETERY BENEATH A CEMETERY, 241 

discovery was made, we are able to read with admiring eyes 
these records of the dead past, so strangely brought to view. 
We know that the heathen mythology of the Augustan age, 
and long before that era, recognized the immortality of the 
soul, and the pains and pleasures of the evil and the good in 
the future state. The river Styx was to be crossed by every 
soul in a boat, which Charon rowed, and each passenger 
paid him a piece of money called an obolus. In the hand of 
the dead was placed this coin to pay the ghostly ferryman. 
And now in the palm of each of these skeletons lies the 
money. Women still wear the necklaces that adorned them: 
braclets clasp their wrists, and the silver or golden brooch 
rests to-day on the breast that has been cold these thirty 
centuries. Even the rings with which they were buried are 
visible on the bones of their fingers. 

A mother and child are sleeping side by side in the same 
bed of clay. The teeth are as white and perfect as when 
they last dined. And there were no unsound teeth among 
them. Cups and ornamented dishes of various kinds, some 
appearing to have contained food for the dead, were found 
near to the bones, and now stand by them. One skeleton 
had its head distorted, and if laid out straight would be seven 
feet long. But they were mostly of the ordinary size, and 
all of them preserved as if the clay had some peculiar quality 
to prevent decay. 

This discovery was made in 1870, and the explorations 
have been carried on from time to time, not yet being com- 
pleted. The director of the Museum, Dr. Kminek-Szedlo, 
was exceedingly kind in bringing the curious phases of this 
resurrection to my notice. He reads the hieroglyphic 
inscriptions on the Egyptian coffins and papyrus, speaks so 
many languages that he is worthy to be the successor of the 
polyglot Mezzofanti, who was once Librarian here, and whose 
bust and eulogy perpetuate his fame. It is well known that 
he was able to speak fluently more than forty languages, and 
was the greatest linguist of whom the world has knowledge. 

Dr. Szedlo called my attention also to another revelation 



242 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

from the earth beneath Bologna, within the present year, 
In February last a discovery was made of a smelting-house or 
foundry far below the present surface of the ground. Out 
of it have already been taken thousands of instruments of 
iron. Some of them, hatchets, knives, spears, swords or 
sabres, sickles, &c, are common now. Others are pre-historic, 
and no one can say for what purpose they were made. If one 
of them had been found alone in a cave or gravel pit, it would 
perhaps have been regarded as pre-adamite. And these 
relics of past ages, in the midst of a city and country where 
art and learning have flourished without decay for successive 
centuries, while the people have been all unconscious of their 
existence under foot, furnish one of the most important chap- 
ters on the short-sightedness of the wisest of living men. In 
the midst of civilization, one entire age of the human family 
goes into the grave : the earth itself, with no convulsion, in 
the gradual progress of time, folds itself around and covers 
over its inhabitants : forests and vineyards, and new cities, 
flourish afresh over the graves, and dust, and bones of former 
peoples, and a University with ten thousand students has not 
a thought that such populations are buried there. 

Geology has scarcely scratched the surface of the earth it 
professes to comprehend. There are mysteries ten feet 
underground that our philosophy never dreamed of. The 
wash from the hill-sides fills up valleys that once teemed 
with life and power, and an earthquake in a night may bury a 
city till the angel of the resurrection wakes it in its unknown 
sepulchre. In these countries that we call old, I see so much 
of the work and wreck of time, that it teaches me the folly 
of making tables of chronology out of layers of rock cr the 
deposit of mud. The men and women, crumbling skeletons 
in the Museum of Bologna, were very silent in their new 
coffins, but mighty eloquent their ghastly, grinning faces 
were, in telling me that one generation goeth and another 
cometh: that what is now, has been, and there is noth- 
ing new under the sun. Years ago I copied from an old 
tombstone in the graveyard of Melrose Abbey, four lines 
that had been often before repeated by Walter Scott and 



OUR WINDOWS IN FLORENCE. 243 

others, but which are still to be studied for the profound 
truth that is hid within them: 

The Earth walks on the Earth glittering with gold ; 
The Earth goeth to the Earth sooner than it would. 
The Earth builds on the Earth temples and towers ; 
The Earth says to the Earth, " All will be ours." 



OUR WINDOWS IN FLORENCE. 

Mrs. Browning made the house in which she resided in 
Florence famous by her " Casa Guidi Windows/' Mrs, Jame- 
son wrote in the same house. And, wonderful to relate. I 
had Mrs. Browning's apartment and Mrs. Jameson's table 
when I was here ten years ago ! But Casa Guidi is not so 
well placed for sunlight as we wished, and we therefore sac- 
rificed the sentiment to the advantage of being at home u in 
mine own inn." It was certainly a pleasant guidance that 
led us to the Hotel de la Ville y where we have found delight- 
ful quarters. If the windows lack the romance of poetry 
and art. they look out upon waters, bridges, towers, domes, 
hills, villas, palaces, churches, and monuments, that together 
make a panorama of unsurpassed historical interest. If the 
story were not spoiled in the telling, a volume might easily 
be made to thrill the reader, by the simplest record of the 
memories suggested by the view from the windows at which 
I am writing these lines. 

The sun has just gone down. An Italian sunset in its 
highest glory is now before us. Serried ranks of clouds are 
on fire. They are reflected from the swollen bosom of the 
Arno, which glows and burns with the last light of day. All 
the west is filled with broken and dissolving rainbows : piles 
of purple and orange, and brilliant red hues and violet rays, 
are heaped up there in masses of rich coloring, a great 
heaven of beauty and glory, in which the fading clouds float 
like islands of the blest in an infinite sea. 



244 



IRENsEUS LETTERS. 



The house is on an open square, on which stands one of 
the oldest churches in Florence. Within it are the ashes 
and the tomb of the man whom Americans will never forget, 
though they regret that they have such cause to remember 
him. On a marble slab in the pavement of the chapel, on 
the left of the high altar, is this inscription : 









1 H 



He was one of those few fortunate men who get more fame 
than is their due. Americo Vespuci followed in the wake of 
Columbus, and having stumbled upon the coast of the 
Western Continent, left his name on the whole of it, and it 
remains to this day, and will to the end of time. More fit- 
ting would it have been to have given the honor of the New 
World's name to Columbus, as it certainly belongs to him. 
And here in Florence they not only build a tomb to Ameri- 
cus and treasure his bones, but they point to the celebrated 
gnomon of the Duomo as the greatest astronomical instru- 
ment in the world. We are told that this fine meridian was 
traced as early as 1468 by a physician of Florence, a great 
philosopher and astronomer, Toscanelli, who corresponded 
with Christopher Columbus, communicated to him the 
results of his penetrating researches into astronomical science, 
and persuaded the great navigator to try the western passage 
to India! Thus the Florentines would intimate that the 
discovery of the Western World is due to the scientific 
researches of their citizen, Dr. Toscanelli. Therefore, with 



OUR WINDOWS IN FLORENCE. 245 

profound complacency, they garnish the sepulchre of Amer- 
icus Vespuci and put the laurels of Columbus on the brows 
of Toscanelli ! 

Across the Arno, which flows beneath our windows, we 
see many hills covered with villas, palaces, convents and 
churches ; but a little tower in the distance, more than all 
else, attracts my attention whenever I look out on this 
splendid scene. From the stone on which Jacob slept, a 
ladder seemed to reach from earth to sky. And from that 
lone tower the old astronomer, the prince of seers, by the 
aid of his telescope, was wont to bring the heavens very 
near. On it the old man stood to make those observations 
which we study with no less wonder to-day than his unbe- 
lieving cotemporaries did in 1640. It is well to revise one's 
recollection of facts when there is a new association by 
which to fasten them. If you are familiar with Milton's 
Paradise Lost, you will readily recur to the lines in which he 
writes that Satan's shield 

" Hung o'er his shoulders like the moon, whose orb 
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
At evening from the top of Fiesole, 
Or in Val d'Arno, to descry new lands, 
Rivers or mountains, in her spotty globe." 

The Tuscan artist was Galileo, to whom Milton came when 
the astronomer was old and blind, a prisoner here, under the 
ban of the Inquisition, waiting for death to come and take 
him above the stars. 

Galileo was born at Pisa, only a few hours from Florence, 
Feb. 15, 1564. Neither you nor I believe in the transmigra- 
tion of souls, but we are entertained by striking coincidences. 
It is asserted that Galileo was born the same day and hour 
when Michael Angelo died ; and when Galileo died, the year 
was signalized by the birth of Isaac Newton ! The world 
never knew three other men, in such a succession, of such 
transcendent genius. Galileo was but a boy of eighteen 
when, in his parish church, he saw the chandelier swinging 
to and fro, and was led to think of a pendulum whose vibra- 



246 IREN^US LETTERS. 

tions should be a measure of time. He was only twenty-five 
when he took his seat as Professor of Mathematics in the 
University of Pisa, his native place, and there made those 
discoveries in physics which lie at the basis of his astronom- 
ical system. The leaning tower of Pisa is looked on by 
travellers as a curious problem, and perhaps Galileo did not 
know why it was so ; but it leaned just far enough for him 
to try his experiments with falling bodies, and if the tower 
never served any better purpose, it was enough that it leaned 
for him. He knew too much for his own peace, for he 
proved that an invention of a great man was a sham, and 
the great man became his enemy and caused the removal of 
the astronomer to Padua. Here he was Professor for eigh- 
teen years. When he had perfected his first telescope he 
took it to Venice, and, from the top of the Cathedral of St. 
Mark, looked into the heavens and discovered the moons of 
Jupiter. This was in 1609. He was now 54 years old. The 
fame of his discoveries, and the effect of them upon the 
received opinions of the world, were abroad in the earth. 
Science contended stoutly against him. Superstition came 
to the aid of science and made the fight bitter. How sorely 
the good man was tried, in the fifteen years that followed 
these brilliant discoveries, his published letters reveal. And 
when the Jesuits pretended that religion would be over- 
turned if it were proved that the earth revolves around the 
sun, the old astronomer — for he was now threescore and 
ten — was ordered to present himself at Rome and answer to 
the charge of teaching doctrine opposed to the faith of the 
Church. Into the hands of the Inquisition he now was 
thrown. It is not certain that he was put to the torture, 
though a sentence in one of his letters seems to strengthen 
fhe idea that he was. Probably he was a man of such sensi- 
tive physical organization that he could not face the instru- 
ments of torture ; and without hesitation he admitted that 
the earth stood still, rather than go upon a wheel himselt 
That he did sign a written retraction of his opinions is quite 
certain. But it is not so certain that he said "it does move, 
nevertheless," when he rose from his knees, as he is reported 



OUR WINDOWS IN FLORENCE. 247 

and generally believed to have said. Be that as it may be, 
we know that his recantation was not believed to be sincere, 
and he was condemned and consigned to imprisonment. 
The intercession of friends procured his release, and he was 
ordered to remain in duress, under the watch of the Inquisi- 
tion, at Arcetri, adjoining Florence, where the Inquisition 
was flourishing, and abundantly able and willing to roast a 
heretic at a moment's warning. The Galli family, to which 
Galileo belonged, had property there, and the villa which he 
rented, and where he passed the remaining ten sad years of 
his life, still remains, and the tower that bears his illustrious 
name. To his house men of learning and fame made pil- 
grimages, to see the man who had revolutionized the system 
of worlds. He toiled on in his forced retirement, writing 
out those works which could not then be published for fear 
of Rome, but which have since become the property of man- 
kind. Milton, a young and ardent poet, quite as unconscious 
of his future as Galileo was of his at the same age, came to 
Arcetri, and looked upon the glorious old man, who could 
not see him now, for at the age of 74 he lost the sight of 
those eyes that had often looked into the mysteries of the 
skies. He closed them here in death Jan. 8, 1642. The men 
of Florence gave him, as he deserved, a royal burial, and his 
sepulchre is among them, in the church of Santa Croce, with 
an epitaph that justly celebrates the greatest astronomer of 
any age. 

Galileo's instruments are carefully preserved and kindly 
exhibited in the great Museum of Natural Science in this 
city. And when you have looked at, not through, his tele- 
scope, which is a very poor affair compared with what we 
have in our modern observatories, and have seen the won- 
derful preparations in wax of anatomical subjects, giving 
the minutest exhibitions of the internal and outer parts 
of the human body, — the most complete and perfect thing 
of the kind in the world, — you may go, as I have gone 
to-day, to the hill of Arcetri, the tower of Galileo, to 
the house and room in which he labored, suffered and died. 
On no other height have I stood and been so profoundly 



248 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

impressed with sublime associations, as to-day and there. 
Leaving the carriage at the foot of the last rise of the hill, 
I walked a few rods up through a narrow alley, and came 
suddenly upon an open space on the very summit. An 
ancient, rustic, rambling stone building, a farmer's place 
apparently, with a rude tower on one corner, crowned the 
hill. I came to the door, and a smiling Italian peasant 
woman asked if I would see the interior. Stepping into the 
court of the house, I found on the walls marble tablets cov- 
ered with inscriptions recording the facts respecting the 
great astronomer's residence : the care that had been taken 
to preserve it as it was in his day. All around were memo- 
rials of him and the noble families with whom he and his 
history are connected. I passed up a flight of stone steps 
into the study of Galileo ! His microscope, his books, his 
manuscripts, his portrait painted from life, his bust, letters 
to him from illustrious men, the chair in which he sat, the 
large table at which he wrought, paper covered with the 
drawings that his own hands had made — all just as if he had 
stepped out of his study and ascended the tower. I went up 
after him. The steps were of wood, and they and the rail- 
ing are rickety with age, but they had held great men, and 
were not to break down with me. The tower was not lofty, 
but, being on a hill-top, it commands the whole horizon : 
and such a heaven above and such an earth beneath, sure in 
no other clime and land may the eye rejoice in. Not fair 
Florence only or chiefly is the glory of this scene : though 
not a dome or tower or palace in its circle of splendor but 
shines at my feet in this brightest of sunlight : but Tuscany, 
covered with vineyards and olives, rich in corn and wine, 
ten thousands of villas crowning and studding the hillsides 
and plains : the Arno rushing among the walls of the city 
and coursing through the fields beyond : and the whole cir- 
cuit of mountains on which the sky rests for support — the 
Apennines in the north shutting off the great world of 
Europe and making, with their sister Alps, the bulwark of 
Italy. Yet it was not this view that Galileo studied from 
this old tower. He did not even look that way. Ad astra 



SAN MINI A TO AND VALLOMBROSA. 249 

ibat. To the stars he went and walked among them, familiar 
with their paths, nor losing once his way : he was at home 
when farthest from the earth in quest of worlds till then 
unknown. Wonderful old man he was ! How patiently he 
bore the greatest of all afflictions to one who pursues the 
stars ! How sad his fate to lose the light of those heavens 
in which by sight he lived ! 

Milton was young when he came to this blind old man. 
Milton was blind before he was old. And Milton saw more 
of heavenly things after he was blind than before. I hope 
that both of them now, eye to eye, are beholding the invisi- 
ble. 



SAN MINIATO AND VALLOMBROSA. 

In full view from our windows is the famous height of San 
Miniato. It is crowned with a lovely and remarkable church. 
Its bell-tower or campanile has its history identified with the 
defence of Florence and the genius of Michael Angelo. 
When we had come down from the tower of Galileo to sub- 
lunary things, we rode among vineyards and olive groves, 
villas and gardens, until we struck upon the magnificent 
boulevard that now leads from the city to the summit of San 
Miniato. 

This boulevard reminds me of modern improvements in 
and about New York City, and the story of it is worth a few 
lines. When the seat of government, under Victor Emanuel, 
was removed from Turin to Florence, it set people and rulers 
crazy with the idea that Florence was to be the greatest city 
in the world. New houses, new streets, new parks, new 
everything, sprang into being as if a wand of enchantment 
was the royal sceptre. To borrow money for all this was 
easy, for the increase of business was to make everybody 
rich, and to go in debt has no terrors when wealth to pay it 
with is sure to come. Among other improvements, this 
splendid highway, winding up and among these beautiful hills, 



250 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

was made, with solid stone footpaths on both sides of it, 
rows of trees planted the entire distance, gardens of exquisite 
beauty made at intervals, with fountains, walks and seats, 
marble stairways with costly embellishments, and on the 
wide esplanade at the summit statues and other adornments, 
making the way from Florence to San Miniato to rival any 
route in ancient Rome, and unsurpassed by any pathway in 
modern times. In a few years the Court moved on to Rome, 
and Victor Emanuel, pushing the Pope out of the chair of 
State in which he had no right to sit, established himself in 
the Quirinal Palace in the city profanely called "the eternal. ,, 
The King having departed, Florence stock went down. 
Everything went down but the taxes and prices. All these 
"improvements" had to be paid for, or at least the interest 
on the debts, and the taxes now on real estate amount often 
to one half of a man's income. I have taken some pains 
to inquire into the methods and amount of taxation, and 
have ascertained that Florence and New York are the most 
heavily burdened with taxation of any two cities within my 
knowledge. And the parallel is more complete when we 
know that this is the result of needless, wasteful and unjusti- 
fiable expenditures in the way of city "improvements." 
Public, like private, extravagance tends only to poverty, and 
there is very little pleasure in having a thing which costs 
more than it comes to, and must be paid for. But let us get 
on, and leave these people to pay for the road: it is a grand 
one, any way, and we will make the most of it. 

Years and years ago, five hundred, yes, more than a thou- 
sand years ago, this hill-top was crowned with a church and 
monastery, and in all the intervening years, since the seventh 
century at least, it has been a famous holy place to which 
pilgrims of high and low degree resort. Once on a time the 
special favor was granted of a full and gracious indulgence to 
every one who came up here from Florence, on foot, on Fri- 
day, and said a little prayer. And that day became a great 
day for San Miniato. Miniato was an Armenian Prince in the 
army of the Roman Emperor Decius, and being accused of 
being a Christian, he was thrown into the amphitheatre to be 



SAN MINI A TO AND VALLOMBROSA. 2$\ 

devoured by a panther. But the legend is that the panther 
would not touch him, The Roman army was at that time 
encamped on this hill near Florence. Miniato was then boiled 
in a cauldron, but it didn't hurt him. Then he was hung, 
then he was stoned, then he was shot with javelins. He sur- 
vived them all, and was all the more a Christian. Then he 
was beheaded, and that killed him, A.D. 254. I have read of 
many saints who could not be put to death in any other 
way than by cutting off their heads. That almost always 
was fatal. 

At the time I am now writing of, Florence was as wicked a 
city as the world knew. The rich and the noble spent most 
of their time in voluptuous pleasures ; men and women were 
alike licentious and fond of blood. On Friday they were 
wont to go on foot, fair women and brave men, on a spree or 
holiday, making a pilgrimage to San Miniato, where they got 
the sins of the past week forgiven, and a new permit for the 
next. All the way booths were set up for the sale of fancy 
goods and drinks, and the poor made gains by selling to the 
rich who flirted and revelled, courted and quarrelled, as they 
came and went on this pious pilgrimage. 

Charlemagne took great pains to endow and improve this 
place. Hildebrand, a Florentine bishop ; in the nth century 
rebuilt the church, which is now, with all the riches and reli- 
gion of ten centuries since expended in and about it, one of 
the most splendid monuments of sacred art and architecture. 
Its pillars and many of its decorating marbles were brought 
from ancient Roman edifices, the pagan temples paying 
tribute to the Christian church; there is no other like this 
in Italy, arches over the nave joining smaller arches, binding 
the whole : the crypt being of more importance and splendor 
than the church, and on the same level with the main floor, 
the sanctuary being on the floor above, reached by a sump- 
tuous marble stairway. The mosaic over the high altar re- 
minds us of Oriental, barbaric gorgeousness. The whole 
interior is divested of the sense of solemnity and awe inspired 
by' the simple grandeur of less costly shrines. 

The nave is wholly given up to the burial of the wealthy 



2g2 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

dead, the entire floor being made of marble slabs, grave- 
stones on which epitaphs of affection and respect are 
inscribed. Many of the slabs are continually decorated with 
gaudy artificial flowers, which admirably represent the 
mourning of friends for friends long since forgotten. And 
all around the church are tombs, with some fine marble 
monuments. The grave is built up with brick and cement, 
and the coffin let in, on which the marble slab is then placed 
and secured. 

Michael Angelo ought to be the patron saint of Florence, 
so fond are the Florentines of fastening his name to every- 
thing they can, in and about town. His lightest word and 
even his look are kept on record for the honor of every 
object that was so fortunate as to win his notice. One church 
is called his " Bride." This he called "la bella Villanela. ,, 
To a statue he said " March," and the command is recorded, 
though the statue has never moved a step. But the old bell- 
tower of this church has a right to be called Michael Angelo's, 
for it bore a conspicuous part in the siege of Florence, which 
occurred when he was the leading man of science and art in 
this city. It overlooks the city, and from it the movements 
of the besiegers could be watched to great advantage. 
Against it they directed their engines with which huge stone 
balls were hurled: shaking the tower from summit to base. 
Michael Angelo had charge of the defences of the city, and, 
with the genius of Gen. Andrew Jackson, he had woollen 
mattresses suspended on the sides of the tower, and these 
protected it from the shock and saved it from destruction. 
The like result followed the use of bales of cotton at New 
Orleans, Jan. 8, 1815. 

In the year of our Lord 1070, Giovanni Gualberto (perhaps 
John Gilbert), son of one of the noble and wealthy families 
of Florence, and who had given himself to wild and reckless 
dissipation, w r as one of the many pilgrims, on Good Friday, 
to the shrine of San Miniato. A trip on foot to the top of 
the hill was a pleasure trip when, as I have said, the 
beauty and fashion of this voluptuous city made a holiday of 
it, and went in crowds to get the forgiveness of their sins, 



SAN MINIATO AND VALLOMBROSA. 253 

and to lay in a good stock of indulgences for as many more. 
It happened that Giovanni's brother Hugh had had a slight 
unpleasantness with a friend, who ran him through the heart 
with a dagger ; and, as a matter of course, Hugh died of the 
wound in less than no time. The murder was no secret, but 
the fight was fair, and unless Hugh's friends chose to avenge 
it, the gentlemanly murderer would not be troubled about it. 
On this road to San Miniato Giovanni Gualberto encountered 
the murderer of his brother, and proceeded to serve him as 
his brother had been served; that is, to run him through 
with a dagger which he drew for that purpose. The un- 
happy man being unarmed, and therefore quite unable to pro- 
tect himself against the steel that was coming dangerously 
near to his person, fell on his knees before his executioner, 
and extending both his arms in the form of a cross, begged 
his enemy to remember that Christ died on that sacred day, 
and for His sake to have pity on him and spare his life. 
This wild young man dropped his dagger, embraced his 
brother's murderer, and together they went up to the church, 
and kneeling before the crucifix, implored the pardon of 
their sins. The testimony of tradition is that the wooden 
image bowed its head in token of forgiveness. And so 
deeply was the youth affected by the miracle, that he forsook 
all his evil ways, and became forthwith a monk of the monks 
in the Convent of San Miniato. These monks proving to be 
not good enough for him to keep company with, he obtained 
permission to found another monastery, and this he did in 
the delicious solitude of Vallombrosa ! 

What a train of pleasing associations starts with the men- 
tion of that sweet name. It is a valley about a score of miles 
east of Florence, high among higher mountains, with a tor- 
rent rushing through it : the hillsides are clothed with forest 
trees, and rich pastures covered with flocks stretch into the 
valley, which is always green : forests of chestnut, oak and 
beech are passed on entering : and the road in the autumn is 
covered deep with the falling leaves. When Milton visited 
Italy in his youth he was in this valley, as thousands of trav- 
ellers have been since, and from it he drew one of his illustra- 



254 IRENsEUS LETTERS, 

tions, now familiar as a household word : he says the rebel 

angels 

"lay entranced, 
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 
In Vallombrosa." 

In this secluded paradise, far from the world's vain strife, 
the once gay and rollicking John Gilbert came, and drawing 
to his company a few other like-minded brethren, they began 
the life of another kind of folly quite as profitless and as 
little pleasing to God as the one they had forsaken. And 
by and by the monastery was married to a convent, the 
abbess of which granted the lands on which the monastery 
stands. But, as usual, the nuns of San Ilaro so sadly forgot 
their vows, that they had to be removed, and the relation of 
the two institutions was dissolved. The founder died long 
before this divorce, and, to the best of our knowledge, con- 
tinued to lead a quiet and orderly life until his death, which 
event occurred in 1073, when he was aged 74 years. 

Two good things are credited to this monastery of Vallom- 
brosa. It is said that the monks were the first to introduce 
potatoes into Tuscany. That certainly was a blessing. I 
never read of monks doing a better thing. The other bene- 
faction was the invention of the sol, fa, la, in music. Guido 
Aretino, a distinguished musical composer, was a member of 
this order. He first used lines and spaces in writing music, 
and made what we call " the stave." Deacon Paul, in the 8th 
century, composed a Latin hymn, which was sung to a par- 
ticular tune, and as it was often repeated, Aretino observed 
that the music rose on the first syllable of each half line, 
regularly, so as to make a gradually ascending scale of six 
notes : he took those syllables and used them as the sounds 
for the notes : the lines were 



Ut queant laxis r^sonare fibris 
Mz'ra. gestorum /^muli tuorum, 
So/ve polluti /abu reatum, 

Sancte Johannes \ 



SANTA CROCE AND THE INQUISITION. 255 

Do was afterwards substituted for the ut, and si was added, 
so that the scale is read 

DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, SI. 

The beauty of this valley is celebrated, but the season of 
the year when I have been in Italy has always been unfavor- 
able for a visit, and I have never been to Vallombrosa. But 
I have been to San Miniato, and the golden hues of the set- 
ting sun are now resting on its gates, and flooding our win- 
dows. 



SANTA CROCE AND THE INQUISITION. 

Florence, the beautiful, had never been darkened in my 
mind by associations with the Inquisition. If I had ever 
heard or read of that infernal institution, the beloved off- 
spring and pet of the Church of Rome, having its seat in 
one of the fairest churches in the fairest city in the world, 
the memory of it had happily faded away. It came upon 
me as a discovery when I found that in Santa Croce it flour- 
ished five hundred long and dreary years : five centuries of 
dark and dreadful wickedness done in God's name, wicked- 
ness that frightens mankind to know that such things were, 
and may be done again, and will be, just as soon as the same 
unrepentant and unchanging Church gets the power to do 
its will. 

The church is the Westminster Abbey of Florence, only 
so called because it has the monuments of a few great men ; 
the tomb of any one of whom would make a church or city 
famous. Here Michael Angelo was brought to be buried at 
his own request. He died at Rome, 90 years old, and the 
Romans wished to have him buried there, but the Floren- 
tines smuggled his remains to his native city. In this church 
he lay in state, and was then laid in the tomb of his family, 
the Buonarotti. Dante's tomb by Canova is magnificent: 



256 IRENjEUS letters, 

Alfieri's also by the same sculptor ; here lies Machiavelli, 
the historian and politician, who taught deception and cun- 
ning as necessary to success in public life. More illustrious 
and worthy of renown than any of them is Galileo, whose 
name is written among the stars. Here he was buried, the 
most of him certainly, though Vincensio carried off the 
thumb and forefinger of his right hand as the members with 
which Galileo wrote. The antiquarian Gori stole another 
finger, which is now to be seen in the Museum of Natural 
History. The pavement of the church is covered with mon- 
umental tablets to the memory of men and women whose 
names are quite unknown. 

In a circle over the main door of entrance is the monogram 
in stone I. H. S., the familiar letters being the initials of 
Jesus Hominum Salvator, " Jesus Saviour of Men." There 
is a tradition that these letters were first employed in this 
connection by St. Bernadine of Sienna, after the plague in 
1437. He remonstrated with a maker of gambling cards for 
pursuing such a trade, when the man replied, as thousands 
of others do who follow injurious callings, " I must live, you 
know." But the saint told him he could show him a more 
excellent way of getting a living. He wrote the letters I. H. S 
on a bit of paper, explained their meaning, and told the 
card-maker to paint them in gold upon cards and sell them. 
They took amazingly, and the man made money and sold no 
more gambling cards. And this reminds me of a better 
story still, in which no saint figures, but I had a word in it. 

In the city of Newark, N. J., I was riding with two ladies 
of a very devotional turn of mind, and strongly inclined to 
the Romanized school of church-women. We had occasion 
to pause for a moment in front of the largest wholesale 
grocery store on Broad street. Said one of the ladies to the 
other, " This is a good place ; I love to see such holy feeling 
mingled with business." 

" To what do you allude ?" said I, being quite at a loss to 
comprehend the occasion of their religious emotion. 

" Observe," she answered, "the sacred letters I. H. S. on 
every box and barrel." 



SANTA CROCE AND THE INQUISITION 257 

I saw it was even so ; but, alas, her sentiment was spoiled 
when I informed her that the man who kept the store re- 
joiced in the name of John H. Stephens. 

Cimabue's portrait of St. Francis, and Giotto's fresco of 
the death of John the Baptist, are the greatest treasures of 
art in the church. Among the very earliest works that com- 
mand the admiration of the ages, these have come down to 
us through six hundred years, and as they were studied with 
reverent regard by the masters of the 15th and 16th centu- 
ries, we may be sure as there were great warriors before 
Agamemnon, so great painters wrought well before Rafael 
or Michael Angelo. But it must be frankly admitted that it 
requires some artistic genius to discover the marvellous 
beauties that glorify the early schools of painting, and to 
the unanointed eye their chief value appears to lie in show- 
ing us by what majestic strides the art advanced in those 
two hundred years between Cimabue and " the Transfigura- 
tion." 

The sun was shining brightly and filling the place with 
warmth and light as we escaped from the cold, dark, damp 
church into the square surrounded by the cloisters. It was 
actually a pleasant spot, though the walls were lined with 
epitaphs, and the rooms associated with the gloomiest 
periods of human history. For here in this sunny spot was 
set up the Inquisition, with all its terrors : here, during the 
years that wore along from 1284 to 1782, the Holy Office, as 
that most unholy tribunal was called, held its mysterious 
seat, and in the name of religion enacted crimes that nothing 
short of Infinite mercy can ever forgive. 

The Inquisition was not a court existing in one city or 
country only. It was conceived in Rome, where the Mystery 
of Iniquity has its hiding place still, and then its cheerful 
offices were extended to other countries where the civil 
power, subordinated to the church, would obey when the 
church demanded that its members should be disciplined in 
dungeons or in fire. 

In the gallery of the Marchese Caponi's palace in Florence, 
many years ago, I saw a picture that has haunted me ever 



2$S IRENMUS LETTERS. 

since. I do not intend to see it again. It often comes to 
me in night watches, when visions of distant years and cities 
stand up before the eyes of the soul, and say, "Here, look 
on me once more." It is the picture of a woman, sitting on 
the floor with her hands clasped about her knees, her head 
sinking upon her breast : a small lamp dying out at her feet 
gives light enough to disclose the truth that the fair sufferer 
is in a dungeon, walled up and left to perish ! Who is she ? 
Is it the horrible fancy of some artist to make a sensational 
picture ? Is it fiction founded on some domestic tragedy ? 
No, it is a veritable passage in the history of Santa Croce, 
a chapter in the chronicles of this beautiful Florence, a 
page in the annals of the gentle and Christ-like Church of 
Rome ! ! ! Shall I tell you the story ? 

THE STORY OF FAUSTINA. 

She was young and beautiful, in a humble walk of life, 
endowed with genius, and by diligent study she had fitted 
herself to give instruction to the youth of her own sex. 

In Florence, in the early part of the seventeenth century, 
the morals of priests and people were alike corrupt, and 
virtue was quite as rare as Solomon said it was among the 
women of his day. More than four thousand nuns filled the 
convents. The convents were governed by the monasteries 
that were swarming with monks. The civil power sought 
to separate the kindred institutions, so great was the scan- 
dal, but the Church was the superior authority, and monks 
and nuns had it their own way. 

Faustina was not a nun. It was no unusual circumstance 
in those days for the daughters of the proudest families to 
separate themselves, nominally, from the world by taking 
upon them the vows of holy orders. Young men fled from 
the conflicts of business, and wars, and society, to the ease, 
the plenty and the pleasures of monastic life. The garb of 
the devotee was merely a cloak for selfish indulgence, and 
no class of persons had more comforts and luxuries and 
entertainments than these religious, who merely assumed 



SANTA CROCE AND THE INQUISITION. 259 

the life of seclusion that they might be idle and well fed 
without labor or care. 

Such was not the spirit or the purpose of Faustina Mai- 
nardi. Her early reading had inspired her with a desire to 
lead the young of her own sex to the higher enjoyments which 
she herself had found in books and the pursuit of art, and 
at a very early age she gathered a school in which she taught 
with the devotion and success of one who is under the influ- 
ence of a higher motive than the pursuit of gain. Young 
women under her care, in successive years became infused 
with her love of the beautiful and true ; they sought wisdom, 
knowledge and skill for the good that was in them, and the 
joy they give to expanding minds. 

The priests had their hands upon every thing in those evil 
times. The holiest places of home were not too secret to 
escape their intrusion. Then as now the confessional made 
the priest the ruler in every household. The master of all 
the thoughts as well as the actions, it is the easiest thing in 
the world for the priest to become the tryant of the family, 
and to make the weak, the superstitious and religious, sub- 
missive to his will. Men are not as subject to the priests as 
women are. In Italy to-day the men do not frequent the 
confessional. Women are still its dupes and victims. The 
serpent is creeping into the Church of England and silly 
women are led captive by the Priest in Absolution, who 
extorts the secrets of the heart by the awful lie that sin can- 
not be forgiven unless confessed to him. This has been the 
real Inquisition of the Church of Rome in all the dreadful 
ages through which her power has been oerpetuated among 
the families of the earth. 

Among the learned and accomplished divines who filled 
the pulpits and ministered at the altars of Florence in 1645, 
there was one who had won great reputation as a preacher 
and a director of schools for the young. This fascinating, 
saintly and distinguished priest, the Canon Pandolfo Rica- 
soli, had no difficulty in adding to his other very agreeable 
duties of the same nature, the spiritual oversight of the 
school of which Faustina was the teacher. It was the sad 



260 IRENMUS LETTERS, 

but too natural result of this association that she who first 
sought in the priest a guide and helper, pouring her heart 
and soul into his ear, as her confessor, should gradually 
come to make known to him those romantic feelings and 
passions which would never have ripened into evil had they 
not been inspired and stimulated by a crafty, designing and 
unprincipled man. Under his despotic power, her conscience 
was perverted and she became his tool and accomplice in 
the corruption of the young and tender minds committed to 
her care. As their spiritual director he received their " con- 
fessions," and as the innocence of their simple natures was 
opened into his ears, he poisoned them, and so led them 
into sin and misery. Alas ! for the depravity of human 
nature. Shame it is that such a fact should be on record in 
the annals of any church, in any age of the world. 

This proud and wicked priest the confessor of these young 
women, was, by the laws of his church, and in spite of his own 
deep depravity, such was the power of superstition over him, 
constrained to confess the secrets of his soul to a brother 
priest ! How the plot thickens, and the policy and craft of 
the Church are displayed as we trace the system in its suc- 
cessive steps. The Canon Ricasoli revealed in confession to 
Father Marius the pleasures in which he was indulging in 
the school which it was his duty to w r atch over with pious 
solicitude : he knew it was very wicked for him to abuse his 
sacred office, and the confidence reposed in him by the 
parents of these precious youth. But he had led this bad 
life with the knowledge that if he confessed his sins in secret 
he would have absolution : to return to his sins and be again 
forgiven. In the weakness of his vanity, it had never 
occurred to the learned and popular Ricasoli that his stand- 
ing in Florence had excited the envy and therefore the 
hatred of his brethren, who would rejoice in his downfall. 
The secrets of the confessional were regarded as sacred even 
in those times of general corruption, but there was not a 
priest then, as there is not a priest now, who would not use 
the confessional for the good of the Churchy though the ruin 
of individuals and families might also be the result. When 



SANTA CROCE AND THE INQUISITION 26 1 

Father Marius had the eloquent Canon Ricasoli in his power, 
he was not slow in betraying him to his superiors. 

At this period, the Inquisition was in full vigor. Father 
Marius informed against Ricasoli, and he was brought before 
the dreaded court. Faustina was arrested also and with 
Ricasoli was accused of corrupting the minds of the young 
women of her school. If the words of the blessed Master 
had been addressed to the judges, not one of them could 
have said a word against this erring woman ; " Let him that 
is without sin cast the first stone." But the occasion was 
too good for them to lose the opportunity of showing zeal 
for morality, and in an age of general dissoluteness among 
priests and people they resolved to make an example of the 
priest and his victim. When we remember the power which 
a priest now has, and then had, over the conscience of a 
weak and gentle and confiding woman who looks up to him 
as her teacher, her father in God and the guide of her soul, 
it is right to say that the sin was largely his, and that he 
should bear the punishment which human tribunals would 
inflict. But the Inquisition never knew the attribute of 
mercy. It lived only to destroy. 

Its proceedings were for the most part conducted in secresy 
the most profound. Into their gloomy chambers Faustina 
was taken for examination, and the rack would have stretched 
her joints with torture had she denied the charge. But 
what had the poor thing to do, except to admit, as she did 
most freely, that she had been guilty of every thing of which 
she was accused : she had obeyed the priest whom she hon- 
ored as one who had the Spirit of God, and she now bewailed 
her sin and surrendered herself to the judges. 

The Refectory of Santa Croce is the largest hall in the 
convent. It is in the same state now in which it was in 
November 1641, when it was the scene of Faustina's condem- 
nation and sentence 6 At the end of the long room is a paint- 
ing of the Last Supper, by Giotto, admired as one of his best 
preserved and masterly works. Above it is another picture, 
the Crucifixion, and at the sides are frescoes of Saint Bene- 
dict and Saint Francis. They have all been on these walls 



262 IR^ENEUS LETTERS. 

more than four hundred years. In the centre of the great 
hall was raised a platform or scaffold, hung with black dra- 
pery as for the exhibition of a corpse. The Inquisitors were 
seated in elevated chairs around it. The Cardinal, the chiefs 
of the Medici family, priests, nobles and dignitaries of the 
city, filled the room. On the platform in the midst of this 
assembly the guilty priest, Ricasoli, and the miserable Faus- 
tina were placed : they were dressed in robes painted all over 
with hideous devils and flames. Then they were made to 
kneel before the Grand Inquisitor, while a Monk, in a deep 
sepulchral voice, read aloud the crimes which they had com- 
mitted and had confessed. The sentence was pronounced 
and carried into immediate execution. 

Underneath the chambers of the Inquisition, was a row 
of dungeons where wretched victims were confined to await 
their trial, and to which those were consigned whose fate 
was to escape the penalty of death, and drag out a miserable 
existence in these subterranean cells. No light penetrated 
them. Air enough was allowed to protract their sufferings. 
These dungeons are now to be seen in many old castles, and 
palaces and prisons in Europe. It was not uncommon for a 
feudal lord to have some of his enemies in dungeons under- 
neath the floor on which he and his family w r ere feasting. I 
have been in many of these cold, damp, dismal cells, and 
have wondered how frail women or even strong men could 
endure a month, not to speak of years, in such a horrid den, 
with scant food, the stone floor the only bed. 

Into such a dungeon Faustina w r as led. It was but six feet 
long and four or five feet wide. The door was narrow, the 
walls were stone. She was left with a lamp in her hand and 
a crucifix on which she fastened her eyes in despair, not hope. 
Her pleas for mercy, her agonizing struggle, against her 
awful doom were all in vain. The pikes of the rude officials 
would have subdued her had she offered the least resistance 
to the stern decree. In silence and woe unspeakable she 
stood in the living tomb, while with swift and cruel hands 
the opening by which she had entered, was walled up with 
solid masonry, and she was left to suffocate or starve. The 



THE CHURCH AND CLOISTERS OF ST MARK. 263 

jmen who had doomed her to this horrid fate, ministers of 
God, high priests of Him who died for sinners, sat in their 
chairs of office, till the work was done, and then went to 
dinner. 

The Canon Ricasoli was condemned to the same fate, and 
the sentence was carried into effect. 

Scarcely more than two centuries have passed away since 
these events occurred in this lovely city of Florence. Not a 
century has yet sped its course since the Inquisition was 
suppressed. Its infernal work was going on until the year 
1782. God grant that it may never be restored ! 



THE CHURCH AND CLOISTERS OF ST. 'MARK. 

We met a fat and flourishing monk as we came out from 
the pharmacy of St. Mark. He was going in, but surely had 
no need of medicine; and as we made some remark upon his 
personal appearance, our Italian cicerone said, with a laugh, 
" they dine well!' 

When the present government of Italy set aside the tem- 
poral and wretched rule of the Pope, it suppressed the monas- 
teries and convents, applying their funds to religious purposes 
for the good of the people. The monks and nuns were pen- 
sioned, and in some cases were allowed to occupy rooms in 
the cloisters they had long inhabited. But their corporate 
existence being destroyed, they are no longer able to hold 
property as an order or society, and so will gradually die 
out. 

This monastery has a strange fascination. Its history is 
rich, marvellous and romantic. We have just come from it, 
full of it. Its walls are covered with the handiwork of artists 
whose names are imperishable. Its cells are lighted up with 
the halo of martyrs. 

From these halls three great and holy men, one the prior of 
the convent, were brought out, hanged and burnt, because 
they denounced the foul corruptions of the Church of Rome. 



264 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

And this, too, when Martin Luther was only fifteen years 
old. 

The church itself is not large, but it has works of art and 
monuments that attract attention. The crucifix by Giotto 
over the front door made him famous as greater than Cima- 
bue, his patron and teacher. John of Bologna designed the 
altars and wrought the statue of St. Antonio. Passignano 
and Jacopo da Empoli, and the beloved Fra Bartolomeo, 
have left their works upon the walls. These are the walls 
that resounded with the fiery eloquence of Savonarola, on 
whose lips the Florentines hung with rapture, or with sobs 
and wails of repentant anguish ; or, roused to frenzy, they 
rushed from the house to burn the books and paintings he 
condemned. 

The convent is preserved in its ancient state as a Museum 
and a monument. Its rich library is a storehouse of manu- 
scripts and volumes of priceless value. But the frescoes are 
the chief treasures. Fra Angelico was a monk of this house 
and order. So was Fra Bartolomeo. Fra is the short for 
frater, brother. Angelico's work is lovely even in its decay. 
What angels he paints ! angelical they are, and he is there- 
fore named Angelico. We find great frescoes by these and 
other artists of renown in the hall and refectory, and on the 
walls of the cells. These are little chambers, some ten feet 
square, with one small window in each, a cold brick floor, 
and a recess in the wall where once stood a lamp and crucifix. 
Into one of these cells the proud Medici were wont to retire 
at times, for a retreat from the luxury of their artistic and 
elegant life, to spend a few days and nights in meditation and 
prayer. St. Antonino's cell is here, with portraits, manuscripts,, 
and other memorials. One, and another, and another monk, 
illustrious in the history of the Romish Church, once lodged 
in these cells. 

At the end of the long hallway we enter a room in which 
is placed a marble monument to Savonarola. It is more 
than a monument to hi?n t It testifies the decay of Romish 
power : for the man commemorated in marble, whose portrait 
and two busts are here cherished as sacred, was put to death 
by the Church, after being stripped of his robes, and degraded 



THE CHURCH AND CLOISTERS OE ST. MARK. 265 

publicly and officially from her ministry. The next room was 
his study when he was Prior of St. Mark. Such change has 
come over the face of things, and the heart of things, in Italy, 
that monasteries are suppressed by law, and men who were 
persecuted to death by the Church of Rome are honored, 
and their execution exalted into martyrdom. Strangers from 
a world that was discovered while Savonarola was pleading 
for the Reformation of the Church, now make pilgrimages to 
the cell hallowed by his prayers and tears; the cell from 
which he was taken when, with the anathemas of the Church 
on his head, he was put to death. I am so full of the story 
that you must read it : I will make it as brief as possible. 

THE MARTYR OF SAN MARCO. 

Girolamo Savonarola began to preach in the year (1483) 
when Martin Luther was born. He was a native of Ferrara, 
Italy, was educated at Bologna, and preached his first ser- 
mon in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. As he be- 
came one of the most eloquent men of ancient or modern 
times, it will encourage the feeble beginner to learn that he 
made a total failure at the start. His audiences dropped 
away, displeased with his piping voice and awkward manner. 
He said of himself afterwards : " I had neither voice, lungs, nor 
style. My preaching disgusted every one. I could not have 
moved so much as a chicken." Yet this man afterwards con- 
quered kings by his eloquence, and men sought the crown 
of martyrdom under the wonderful power of his words. 

He was the great Reformer preceding the advent of Luther. 
He came to the front when the corruption of the Church of 
Rome was so deep, wide and awful that no human tongue or 
pen, without divine inspiration, is equal to its description. 
And in this age of the world no decent page can receive the 
record. 

Savonarola had the material of a great orator and a great 
reformer in him and he knew it. Overcoming by severe 
training the obstacles that threatened his success, and filled 
with the spirit of a saint, a hero, and a martyr, he put his 
life into the work of reviving the Church and giving free- 



266 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

dom to the people. He believed in God and in himself. 
More than this, he believed that God spoke by him as a pro- 
phet when he threatened judgments to come unless the 
Church repented and despots gave freedom to the oppressed. 

Apostates, and not apostles, sat in the chair of St. Peter. 
White Savonarola was acquiring knowledge in the convent at 
Bologna, and by fasting and prayer, and holy meditation, was 
being trained for his great mission, the Church was governed 
by Sixtus IV., profligate, avaricious, and wicked, whose 
shameless vices filled the young and pious student with hor- 
ror, and stimulated his resolution to lead a crusade in the 
Church to save the cross. That wretch of a Pope died the 
year after Savonarola, preached his first sermon. Innocent 
VIII. succeeded him. The only innocence in him was in his 
name. Bribery and perjury were the price he paid for the 
chair. He took an oath beforehand that he would not exer- 
cise the power of absolving himself : and when he was elected 
he absolved himself from that oath and then gave himself up 
to all manner of evil, forgiving his own sins and sinning the 
more. In these mighty ministers of iniquity, sitting in the 
seat of the high priests in the temple of the Most Holy, claim- 
ing to hold the keys of heaven in their unclean hands, the 
young enthusiast saw the fulfilment of the visions of St. 
John in Patmos. 

Then rose to the throne of the Church a man, a monster, 
whose name, after the lapse of three hundred and fifty years, 
still reeks with infamy, as the vilest and most beastly of the 
sons of men. The pagan emperors of Rome had produced 
occasional specimens of human beings in whom varieties of 
vice were developed, as avarice, cruelty, lust, and revenge. 
But it remained for the Church to beget a son, and raise 
him to be its high priest and king, in whom dwelt all con- 
ceivable sins and shame, a disgrace to the human family, and 
an everlasting evidence of what infernal wickedness may be 
in man abandoned of God to work all uncleanness with 
greediness. Yet was the Church itself so rotten, hierarchy, 
priests and people, they hailed as a god the advent of this 
Titan of sin, when he bought his way to the Papal chair, and 



THE CHURCH AND CLOISTERS OF ST MARK. 267 

with the infamy of unmentionable vices on his name already, 
Alexander VI., in the person of Roderigo Borgia, became the 
head of the Church of Rome. There never was but one good 
thing possible to be said of him. He was not a hypocrite. 
Sitting in the temple of God, so called, he professed to be 
nothing else than the incarnation of Satan, adding to all the 
vices of which the devil would be guilty, those crimes of which 
human beings alone are capable. Without disguise, restraint 
or shame, his crimes were limited only as the ability of the 
man was less than the will of the monster. He would have 
plucked the Virgin from the choir of heaven and torn up its 
streets of gold, to gratify his lust and greed. And this human 
demon was the head of the Church on earth, and the Church 
adored him. He was and the Church was then as truly 
infallible as the Pope is now, or as the Church ever was. 
Not an attribute of wisdom, truth, and righteousness vests in 
that Church or its head to-day, that did not, by every right, 
belong to it when Alexander VI. came to its throne in 1492, 
and by his matchless wickedness defied God and astounded 
the world. 

Among the few, the very few, in the Church who sighed and 
cried for the abominations that were done in the midst of 
her was Savonarola, now a monk and preacher in Brescia. 
The Medici family had reigned in Florence a hundred years, 
swaying the sceptre in a nominal republic with regal power, 
surrounding themselves with priceless luxuries, gathering the 
arts and sciences to the embellishment of their palaces and 
city, cultivating letters and philosophy, and transmitting their 
wealth and power to successive generations. To overturn 
them and restore the government to the people, was the 
dream of many, and when all other means failed, the pecu- 
liarly Italian system of assassination was attempted. The 
papal government was externally friendly to the Medici, but, 
as always, its friendship was hollow and deceitful, Pope, car- 
dinals and bishops, conspired to hire a band of murderers to 
assassinate the two brothers, Guilianoand Lorenzo de Medici, 
in the midst of the celebration of the blessed sacrament, in 
the temple of God. One of them was slain. Lorenzo was 



S6S IRENMUS LETTERS. 

wounded, but not fatally. The conspirators were seized and 
seventy of them were put to death the next day. The arch- 
bishop and two of his fellow murderers were hanged out of 
one of the palace windows. The sympathies of Savonarola 
were with the friends of popular liberty. Lorenzo, wishing 
to glorify Florence with the most eloquent as well as the 
most ingenious and learned men, invited Savonarola to be the 
Prior of St. Mark, a convent which Lorenzo had founded. 
He came. But the honor thus conferred did not silence or 
weaken his denunciation of the sins of the times. No pro- 
phet in the days of Israel's degeneracy ever spoke with more 
boldness and decision than he. Lorenzo sought to soothe 
and to win him. Day after day the great man, called the 
Magnificent, came to the garden of the convent to converse 
with the Prior, who was accustomed there to teach his breth- 
ren and disciples. When Lorenzo came, Savonarola would 
retire to his cell. Blandishments were lavished on him in 
vain. He denounced the vices of the times, and in his fiery 
zeal the ascetic enthusiast blazed into fanaticism, and he con- 
founded things innocent and beautiful with the sensual and 
voluptuous. So fervid and irresistible were his appeals that 
thousands of the Florentines brought their gems of art, splen- 
did paintings, the works of great masters, mosaics and jewels 
of gold and silver and precious stones, as well as their 
instruments of gaming, licentious books and pictures, what- 
ever ministered to the passions and aesthetic tastes, and made 
one grand holocaust, in the public square, and burned them 
before the Lord! In these funeral pyres, these burnt sacrifices 
of ignorance and superstition, many books and paintings 
were consumed that art and learning and genius have never 
replaced. But these werethe faults of excessive and unen- 
lightened zeal. Bartolomeo, one of the finest painters of that 
or any other age, was so moved by the great reformer's words, 
that he burned his own magnificent creations, and became a 
monk in the cloisters of St. Mark. Four years he refused to 
paint at all, lest he should minister to an unhallowed taste. 
He was ordered by his superior to resume his art, or the gal- 
leries would now want some of their most glorious paintings. 



THE CHURCH AND CLOISTERS OF ST. MARK. 269 

Savonarola thundered in the ears of the affrighted people 
that the day of doom was at hand. He read in the Book of 
the Revelation the plagues that were coming upon Rome and 
Florence and the whole Church on account of their sins. 
And then death came to the palace of Lorenzo de Medici, and 
he sent for the Prior of St. Mark to confess him in his mortal 
agony. Savonarola yielded to the request of him dying 
whom he would not obey in the plenitude of his wealth and 
power. 

" Dost thou believe with all thine heart?" asked the monk 
of the dying prince. And Lorenzo said he did. "Wilt thou 
restore all thou hast taken from others unlawfully?" The 
spoiler of cities remembered the treasures of art with which 
Florence was enriched and adorned, but he groaned an 
unwilling promise. "■ And wilt thou give back to Florence 
her liberty and free government by the people?" Lore/izo 
thought of heaven and hell, his proud spirit revolted at the 
terms on which absolution was offered, and he refused to 
answer. The stout-hearted monk went away: left his patron 
to die unshriven. 

The Pope heard again and again of the denunciations 
heaped on his head by the eloquent monk. He warned him 
to desist. Savonarola replied that he expected death to be 
the reward of his faithfulness to duty, and it had no terrors. 
The Pope sent a messenger to Florence with the offer to the 
Prior of a cardinal's hat. The monk repelled the offer with 
scorn. Two parties were formed in Florence fighting unto 
blood, to resist and to defend the reform of the Church 
which Savonarola preached. Charges of disobedience of 
papal authority were brought against him. He was sum- 
moned to Rome, but refused to go. Crowds listened to his 
sermons and with sobs and tears bewailed the sins of the 
Church and their own sins that had incurred the wrath of 
God. 

With his progress as preacher and reformer, he became 
more and more a fanatic. He had visions of angels and con- 
flicts with devils, and it was said of him, though he was care- 
ful not to say it of himself, that the Almighty condescended 



270 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

to speak with him face to face! The blessed Virgin was said 
to have put a crown of martyrdom on his brow, and a dove 
alighting on his shoulder whispered in his ear. His sermons 
became rhapsodies. He led the people in public spiritual 
dances, while they sang hymns and called with loud voices 
for Christ to come. Signs in the heavens were seen in many 
places, statues were bathed in sweat, women gave birth to 
monsters, and the land trembled under the tread of invisible 
armies with trumpets and drums. 

The Pope threatened the flaming prophet with the terrors, 
of the Church. The monk flung back his threats and declared, 
with truth, and that was the worst of it, that the Pope and 
his priests were worse than Turks and Moors. There is no 
faith, he said, no love, no virtue, in Rome. It was true then, 
it is true now. " If you would ruin your son, make him a 
priest," exclaimed Savonarola, and the priests were so enraged 
by his words that they resolved to get him out of the way by 
fair means or foul. The Pope stirred up the people against 
the monk whose testimony was terrible. Florence was threat- 
ened with the Papal curse, if it did not stop the preacher's 
mouth. The magistrates were ordered to send him a prisoner 
to Rome. They were his enemies and would gladly obey the 
command. The priests of Florence refused to absolve or to 
bury any who should listen to his preaching. But so much 
the more did the multitudes throng the church of St. Mark. 
The war was now openly declared, and Savonarola was an 
acknowledged rebel against the Pope and the apostate 
church. The result could not be doubtful. 

It was on Palm Sunday, 1498, when the mob, set on fire by 
the hostile priests, assailed the Convent of St. Mark. They 
were met by a determined resistance, and some of them were 
slain. The magistrates interfered and the riot was sup- 
pressed, but Savonarola and two of his brethren, Do menico 
and Maruffi, were seized and thrust into prison. They were 
brought to trial and subjected to the infernal tortures of the 
inquisition to induce them to recant, and submit to the 
authority of the Church. Savonarola's temperament was 
unfitted to endure the rack, and as his joints were strained 



THE CHURCH AND CLOISTERS OF ST MARK. 271 

and every nerve was wrung with agony his strength failed 
and he was ready to recant, only to withdraw so soon as 
he was released for a moment from the torture. One awful 
night intervened, and the more fearful engines were applied 
with the same result. " Lord!" he cried in his agony, " take 
me to thyself." The three holy men were condemned to be 
hanged and burned. 

On the morning of May 22, 1498, they were led forth into 
the grand square of the Signori to die. At daybreak they 
had given to one another and received the Holy Communion, 
and their faith was strengthened in the sacrament. The vast 
crowd was not a mob only. Bishops, and priests and dele- 
gates from the Pope, in their robes of office, stood near the 
sacrifice. The piazza was then, as it is now, surrounded by 
the palaces of the great and the wealthy. The noblest of them 
all was the Palazzo Vecchio, in which the Gonfalonieri, or 
superior magistrates, had their official residence. It was after- 
wards the royal house of the Medici. From the windows of 
this palace the magistrates witnessed the awful scene. 

As the hour drew nigh a solemn awe fell upon the people. 
The friends of the martyrs gathered near to them, whispering 
words of encouragement and mingling prayers with their 
tears. Vasona, a bishop, once a pupil of Savonarola, stripped 
them of their clerical garments and pronounced them 
degraded from the sacred office. But when the bishop said 
to Savonarola, " I separate thee from the Church Militant and 
the Church Triumphant," the martyr with a firm and loud 
voice said, " from the Militant, but not from the Triumphant : 
that thou canst not do." And when a friend asked him if he 
went willingly to his death, he answered : " Should I not 
willingly die for His sake who willingly died for me a sinful 
man?" 

In the midst of the square a scaffold was erected, and as if 
in mockery of the death of our Blessed Lord, the places for 
the three were so arranged that Savonarola should be exe- 
cuted in the midst and raised above the others, one on his 
right hand, the other on his left. Silvestro ascended first and 
exclaimed "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Do- 



272 IRENjEUS LETTERS. 

menico took his place, and then Savonarola repeated the 
Apostles' Creed, and as the words "the life everlasting" were 
said, they were drawn up by the neck and strangled. Fag- 
gots heaped about the scaffold were now fired and the bodies 
were consumed, dropping piece by piece into the flames. 
When the awful scene was over, the ashes were gathered in a 
cart and cast from the Old Bridge, into the Arno. 



GOING TO ROME. 

" All roads lead to Rome," is an old saying. It has a hid- 
den meaning that we will hope is not true. 

Through many a long year when Europe was laced with 
railways, the Pope would not suffer his petty States to be 
disturbed with them, and the road to Rome was worse than 
in the days of the Caesars. In the year 1853 the best route 
to the capital was by sea to Civita Vecchia, and thence by 
coach, forty miles, on a dreadful road. 

But the march of time has left the lumbering stages for 
the mountains, and even the mountains are invaded now by 
the railway. Over or under we go by rail through the Alps 
and the Apennines ; the rocks on the seaboard are tunnelled, 
and, instead of being tossed on the waves, we glide along the 
caverns, cautioned only to keep heads and arms within, lest 
they be left behind in the dark. 

The rail connects Rome with Florence and the rest of the 
world. It was a dull, dismal, winter morning, the last of 
November, when we were called out of bed before daylight 
to get breakfast and be off to the station. And by that per- 
versity of nature so common to his class, the porter who 
called us mistook our rooms for some still more unfortunate 
traveller's, and roused us an hour before the time. The 
pleasures of travel and the delicious climate of Italy are 
appreciated when one shivers over a cold breakfast by can- 
dle-light, crawls into the court-yard of his Albergo, mounts 
the omnibus in a dripping rain, and is dragged, with an enor- 



GOING TO ROME, 273 

mous load of trunks, to the station half an hour before the 
time of starting. The waiting-room has frescoed walls and 
mosaic floors, with interworked inscriptions, and is as cold 
as an icy sepulchre. The half hour of waiting is spent in 
registering luggage, weighing and marking and paying. At 
last the doors are opened, and rush is made for the best 
seats. Then you suppose you are off. The time is up, but 
some important functionary has not arrived : the car-doors 
are locked : no cord or bell connects you in any way with 
help if you want it; you may have a crazy woman or a bandit 
in the apartment, but there you must stay until the con- 
ductor — strangely called a guard — is pleased to release you 
at some distant station. It was twelve minutes by the sta- 
tion time when the gold-laced officials touched their caps to 
somebody who bustled into the train, and we were off. 

It is a beautiful journey by rail from Florence to Rome. 
But we cannot stop for half an hour at every place of inter- 
est, as we did ten or twelve years ago when posting through 
Italy. Then we explored the quaint and curious old city 
Montevanchi, and its museum of remains discovered in its 
vicinity ; the elephant, hippopotamus, and the mastodon once 
roamed these plains, and found their graves in which they 
have slept undisturbed certainly for two thousand years. 
But we did rest at Arezzo a few minutes, where Petrarch was 
born, when his parents were in exile from Florence ; and the 
friend of Horace and Virgil, Mecaenas, was born here, and 
Vasari, and Benvenuti, and Leonardo Aretino. 

Cortona's walls of gigantic stones have resisted the assaults 
of war and time, and are just as good as ever. It has a 
famous grotto, quite as genuine an article as many others in 
Italy or Judea. It is a curious Etruscan building of huge 
stones joined without cement, and named the Grotto of 
Pythagoras. This gentle philospher preached the virtue and 
duty of toleration, and the ancient Oxonians burned him alive 
for holding and teaching such a pestilent heresy. The C^rton- 
ians of Italy, for the honor of having the philosopher as one 
of their citizens, took to themselves the shame of putting 
him to death. Such is history. 



274 I RE N^, US LETTERS. 

The Lake of Thrasymene is skirted by the road, and we 
talked over the great battle which was fought on its banks 
by the Carthaginians under Hannibal, and the Romans under 
Flaminius, B.C. 217. The streams that flow into the lake 
ran red with blood, and an earthquake was unheeded in the 
greater shock of battle. I forget how many bushels of rings 
the victorious Africans took from the fingers of the slain 
Roman nobles after the fight was over. 

The old cities and villages we pass seem, from the road, 
deserted and dying. Decay, like ivy, hangs on the walls and 
roofs, and the dead past rises to view ; for the time was when 
every acre of this ground lived with stalwart men, who went 
out from these dead cities to the conquest of the world. 

We are approaching Rome. Herds of mottled cattle roam 
the plains. Ruins, the names of which are buried beneath 
them, lie in the distance. Miles of ancient aqueducts, on 
successive arches, seem to be marching across the campagna, 
over the graves of twenty centuries. 

It is just possible that some travellers may not be excited 
on approaching Rome. It is a point with many persons to 
be never excited. These oxen and buffaloes are not in the 
least affected by their nearness to Rome. To be insensible 
here is to be like them. Dr. Arnold writes that the day of 
his arrival was "the most solemn and interesting" of his life. 
Niebubr describes his emotions as overpowering. Chateau- 
briand says that the very dust of the city has something of 
human grandeur. When Luther came to Rome he cried, as 
he entered her gate, " I salute thee, O holy Rome, sacred 
through the blood and tombs of the martyrs." 

None of these thoughtful men came to Rome by rail. But 
we had this in common with them, that the rush and clatter 
of the cars did not destroy the sentiment of the approach to 
the Eternal City. We were in such a train of thought 
when the train rushed into the city, and we were disgorged 
in front of the Baths of Diocletian. 

I never look at Italy on the map without an intense sense of 
wonder. Judea gave law to the world, but Judea's son was 
the Man Divine. The philosophy of Greece has ruled in the 



GOING TO ROME. 275 

thought of the world, but that was the power of mind in the 
realm of mind. But Italy, an insignificant peninsula in an 
inland tideless sea, a tongue of land shaped like a boot, and 
compared with Europe only, is less than the foot to a man, 
could and did speak the word which the whole world heard 
and obeyed ; her armed legions marched forth to the con- 
quest of the nations : her yoke was on the neck of Germany, 
Helvetia, Gaul and Britain ; and the multitudinous East, 
with its barbaric wealth and splendor, submitted to her impe- 
rial sway : Africa and Asia, and all the earth, sent streams of 
gold and fabulous treasures to make rich the cities and citi- 
zens of this diminutive country ; kings and queens were led 
as captives through the streets of this Imperial Rome, and a 
hundred temples dedicated to pagan gods were perfumed 
with sacrifices of triumphant gratitude : here learning and 
letters, the arts, poetry, eloquence and philosophy flourished 
in their glory for the admiration and instruction of mankind, 
as their yet unrivalled remains attest at this day. And when 
the Christian religion subdued the Empire and mounted the 
throne, it became the ruling faith of the world, sending out 
its ministers among the nations, overturning kings and lord- 
ing it over the consciences of hundreds of millions of human 
beings through protracted centuries, and even now, in its 
corruption and decrepitude and apostasy, loaded with the 
sins of simony and uncleanness and murder, and whatsoever 
worketh abomination or maketh a lie ; drunk with the blood 
of uncounted armies of saints who in its persecutions it has 
sent up to the thrones of martyrs : staggering to its doom 
under the blasphemous assumption of infallibility by which it 
has insulted and defied the Only Wise God ; even yet and now 
it stands like the imperial ruins of old Rome, majestic and 
mighty in its age and decay, destined to be like those ruins 
longer in perishing than in rising to the summit of its power. 
It is an event in one's life to come to Rome. Pagan or 
Papal, Jew, Heathen or Christian, he must be more or less 
than a man who can come to Rome without emotion. And 
with these and the like emotions, I drove away from the sta- 
tion to the Hotel Quirinal in Rome. 



276 IRENjEUS letters. 



THE ETERNAL CITY! WHY? 

Probably there are writers wise enough to tell us why 
Rome is called the " Eternal " City. Not recalling the reason 
at this moment, and having no books to help me, I must 
doubt the fact. So far from being without beginning, it is 
certain that many other towns antedate it, and its end is 
nearer to our day than its beginning. The Venerable Bede 
copies and so preserves, as a fly is kept in amber, a prophecy 
of Anglo-Saxon Pilgrims, which is in Latin, but in English is 
too familiar for quotation ; 

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; 
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; 
And when Rome falls, the world." 

The Coliseum is certainly good for another couple of 
thousand years, if the Romans restore it from year to year, 
as they do now, but Rome had its fall long time ago, and 
the Coliseum is a ruin, but the world rolls on, while the 
Eternal City is no more to the world than the fly on the cart- 
wheel. 

The city once had four millions of inhabitants. It now 
has two hundred and fifty thousand ! That does not read much 
like the life of an eternal city. Its growth seems to be down- 
wards. Once on a time the fortunes of war left it with only 
a thousand inhabitants. That was in the year 546, when 
Totila, King of the Goths, captured it, after a long siege, and 
found the city a desert. When its people were counted by 
millions, everything flowed into it ; now nothing comes but 
travellers and Peter's Pence. The Pence will cease, but the 
travellers will come as the ruins multiply. The visitors bring 
and leave a great sum of money every year, and the more as 
they are robbed the more. Prices have doubled in ten years, 
and travel in Italy, which once was cheaper than in any other 
part of Europe, is now more expensive. The hotel charges 
are enormous in Rome, quite as bad in Florence, and need- 
lessly high in all the cities. This tends to the decrease of 



THE ETERNAL CITY! WHY? 277 

travel. The hotels raise their prices as the company falls 
off. 

Rome is said to be veiy unwholesome. There is a positive 
panic on the subject. If the half be true that is said of peo- 
ple dying here, the city, so far from being eternal, is on its 
death-bed now. In all the other cities of Italy the traveller 
is warned against Rome. " The malaria is dreadful in Rome 
just now," is the constant remark, and those who are on 
their way to the city are frightened. If they come they are 
afraid to stay. Fear helps them to be ill. Then there is a 
hateful saying, " None but dogs and Englishmen walk in the 
sun in Rome." That saying has killed many men and 
women, tempting them to avoid the very life of Italy, the 
warm, glorious, genial sun. Out of the sun is in the way to 
getting a chill. And a chill is the forerunner of disease. It 
is not dangerous to visit Rome for a few days at any season 
of the year. But malaria does prevail in regions round 
about the city from early summer until frost comes, and 
invades the walls, except in the most crowded, the filthiest 
quarters. There no stranger would stay, and the natives are 
acclimated. The mortality among the settled population of 
Rome is not in excess of other cities. Mr. Hooker, the banker, 
Mr. Terry, the artist, and others who have resided here 
thirty or forty years, regard the city as wholesome as any 
other. Why, then, do so many travellers sicken and die 
here, or carry away with them the seeds that afterwards bear 
deadly fruit. Chiefly, because they are iinprudent. They do 
those things they ought not to do, and leave undone many 
that ought to be done, and no wonder they soon come to say 
" there is no health in us." The one peculiarity of the Italian 
climate to be kept ever in mind is, that the contrast between 
the warmth in sun and shade is far greater than in England 
or the United States. The sun does not smite by day : the 
sun is life and health. But the sudden change from sunshine 
to shade is a rush irom heat to cold, and the check of per- 
spiration is dangerous anywhere. Warm by walking in the 
sun, we enter a church or gallery : the floors are stone, and 
Stone cold : we are chilled through and through as we stand 



278 IRE N^ US LETTERS. 

with upturned faces, and aching feet, before paintings that 
are on the ceiling, or on the high walls above our heads, and 
we pursue this study of art hour after hour and day after day, 
till we are worn out, and are obliged to send for the doctor. 
We are victims of the Roman fever ! So the obituary notice 
says, and we are added to the long roll of martyrs to the love 
of art, who could not stand the climate of Rome. This is 
the short of nine-tenths of the cases of disease and death 
among the travellers who come to Rome for the purpose of 
visiting the city. Many come because they are invalids 
already, and most of these go away better than they came. 
Some die, and their fate adds to the bad reputation of Rome. 
But each Italian city to which foreigners resort has its 
Protestant cemetery, and its monuments are covered with 
inscriptions that tell us how vain it was to seek for life and 
health in this lovely clime, when death has marked his vic- 
tim for the tomb. The Florence cemetery is full : and when 
I was there a few weeks ago, three or four persons were 
waiting burial while a new cemetery was in preparation. 
England and the United States have peopled that Campo 
Santo, and one also in Naples, and this one in Rome, where 
the pyramid of Cestus stands as it did when Paul was led by 
it to his execution. Turn to Conybeare and Howson's book 
on the travels of Paul, and read the tenderly eloquent pas- 
sage in which this monument and these graves are described. 

But I have strangely wandered from the point. It was to 
inquire why Rome is called the Eternal City, when it is evi- 
dently dying. 

The Pope was said to be dying when we arrived. He had 
been dying for some days, and from hour to hour the event 
was expected. The first Roman citizen of whom I asked if 
the Pope was still living, answered : 

" Living! if you think he is going to die, you will be con- 
vinced of your mistake : he is not to die this time, I assure 
you." 

Yet the doctors were at his bedside continually, and day 
after day issued a statement of his condition. 

The Pope and the King were at variance. The King had 



THE ETERNAL CITY ! WHY? 279 

taken the crown of all Italy for his own head, with the con- 
sent of the people, and against the will of the Pope. The 
time was when the will of the Pope would have been law 
alike to King and to people. That time has long gone 
by and forever. The King was a good Romanist, but the 
Pope read him out of the Church, and so the King and the 
Pope were now at war. But the Pope was sick and likely to 
die, and the King sent daily, and often two and three times 
a day, to learn how the Pope was getting on. It was said in 
Rome, and it is probably true, that the Pope and the King 
were not enemies, except on paper and before the world. It 
is certain that the King had the offices of the Church admin- 
istered to and for him as regularly as he desired, and, as an 
excommunicated person, he could not have had this privi- 
lege had it been against the will of the Church. There was 
some secret understanding between the Pope and the King, 
and letters frequently passed between them. Perhaps they 
had private interviews, in the palace of one or the other. 
The King lived in the Quirinal and the Pope in the Vatican 
Palace. 

While the Pope was supposed to be dying, we met the 
King riding in an open carriage on the Pincio promenade. 
He was the incarnation of high living, his face was almost 
purple. We met him again, and the third time, and every 
time we saw him the more florid was the face of the King. 
Within a month the King is smitten with mortal sickness. 
Now the physicians are at his bedside, night and day. The 
kings of all Europe send messages of inquiry. The Pope is 
anxious and is among the inquirers. The last sacrament of 
the Church is administered to the dying. The King is dead : 
not yet sixty years old, the King is dead. 



280 IRENu&US LETTERS. 



A MORNING ADVENTURE IN ROME. 

You have often heard of the Sepolte vive, the buried- 
alive nuns of Rome. I have just returned from their convent. 
It is a strange story that you are to read, scarcely credible in 
this age of the world, but strangely true it is, and " pity 'tis 
'tis true." 

Leaving the church St. Maria in Mo7iti, where repose in 
full view the body of a canonized beggar, I walked up the 
street, and in a moment reached a narrow alley which 
seemed to lead only to a gloomy arch under which was a 
painted crucifix, life-size, with two old monks kneeling in 
front of it. I walked up to these hideous images, and on the 
left hand, found a flight of stone steps. I went hastily up, for 
I knew at once, from what I had heard, that these steps led 
to the doors of the concealed convent of Farnesian nuns, the 
Sepolte vive, or Buried Alive. 

Perhaps it was the spirit of adventure, certainly of curiosity, 
that prompted me to ascend the steps, for I could have had 
no expectation of gaining admission to this house of living 
death. Mr. Hare, in his " Walks in Rome," had told me 
"that the only means of communicating with the nuns is by 
rapping on a barrel which projects from a wall on the plat- 
form above the roofs of the houses, when a muffled voice is 
heard from the interior, and if your references are satisfac- 
tory, the barrel turns round and eventually discloses a key by 
which the initiated can admit themselves to a small chamber 
in the interior of the convent." 

I looked in vain for any projecting barrel, but having 
reached an open gallery above the roofs of houses around, 
though the walls of the convent rose still higher, I entered 
a recess, on the walls of which were inscriptions in Latin and 
Italian, such as, " Who enters here leaves the world behind." 
" Qui non diligit, manet in morte." In the wall was a copper 
plate about one foot wide by two feet high, which I supposed 
covered the opening through which communication was to 
be had with the interior, On feeling of it, I found it was the 



A MORNING ADVENTURE IN ROME. 281 

side of a hollow cylinder, and evidently made to revolve if 
necessary. This must be " the barrel " through which the 
muffled voice of the woman within would come to me, if the 
oracle chose to reply to my call. I knocked. No answer 
came, but the hollow chamber gave back a melancholy 
sound. 

My sensations at this moment were peculiar, and I began 
to wish that I had not come, or at least that I had brought 
with me some companion to share the excitement, if not the 
perils of this adventure. For the secret of this convent is 
that the nuns who once enter never come out of the door 
again, dead or alive ! They never hear from the world out- 
side. No mother's voice or father's love intrudes upon this 
living tomb in which their hopes and hearts are buried. 
They sleep every night in a coffin in which they are to be 
buried, here, when they finally stop breathing. They are 
told, when one of their parents dies, that some loved one is 
dead, so that each one is to be thrilled with the sorrow that 
perhaps her mother or father is dead, but no one knows 
which one has become an orphan. It is said that they become 
so enamored of death, that they invade the vaults in which 
their dead sisters are placed, and fondle the corpses as chil- 
dren play with dolls. They have a death's head on the dinner 
table, and often lie down in graves prepared with their own 
hands, that they may be as nearly dead themselves as they 
can be while yet constrained to live. 

Around me were the walls of this huge sepulchre, silent as 
the tomb itself, cheerless, hopeless, the home of madness or 
despair. It was Christmas day. The sun was shining 
joyously on roofs below me, and all the glad morning the 
bells of Rome had been ringing the carols of the Saviour's 
natal morn. The city was jubilant with the songs of angels, 
and the churches flung open all their doors to the people who 
flocked to the choirs and the altars, their hearts the mean- 
while shouting, " Unto us a child is born/ But no glad 
sound of Merry Christmas enters these dead walls : this pri- 
son house of young souls, doomed in the spring time of life 
to take up their abode in coffins, vaults and tombs, 



282 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

These gloomy thoughts of mine were destined to a speedy 
interruption and a sudden conversion. 

I knocked again, and with greater force; then waited 
listening. Presently a woman's voice — she must have been 
close by me — was heard from the other side of the copper 
plating, and this is what passed between us : 

The voice (in Italian). — " What do you wish ?" 

" I wish to visit the convent if it be allowed." 

The voice. — " It is not possible for you to come in." 

* r I would see the convent, as I have come from a far coun- 
try and have heard much of this institution." 

The voice. — " You cannot come in ;" and then the woman 
broke out into a ringing, hearty laugh, loud and long. 

I was taken all aback. It had not occurred to me that they 
ever laughed inside such walls as these. It was more in my 
mind that " darkness, death and long despair reign in eternal 
silence there." But she laughed cheerily at the idea of my 
being such a fool as to think of coming in there, and we 
chatted gaily, I laughing in sympathy on the outside, and she 
within, a thin metallic loose plate between us. 

The voice. — " Do you speak the French ?" 

" Better than I speak the Italian, but the English is my 
own tongue." 

She said she would send some one to converse with me, 
and in a few moments another voice addressed me in French, 
and asked if I would walk in and visit the chapel. I said 
that I wanted to seethe convent, and the mode of life within. 
She replied that it was impossible, and very soon began to 
laugh as merrily as her sister had done. When, in her play- 
ful French banter, she asked me, "What do you want to 
see ?" I said, with equal playfulness, " I want to see you," 
her merriment broke out afresh, and I verily thought for a 
moment I had won my way into the fortress by the irresisti- 
ble art. 

The cylinder revolved, showing me that it was divided into 
chambers ; it paused and I heard something fall upon the 
metal bottom. It turned still more, and the open chamber 
presented itself to me with two keys lying in it. The voice 



A MORNING ADVENTURE IN ROME. 283 

within said, " The larger key will admit you to the chapel, 
and the smaller will open a door inside of it." 

The door of the chapel was near to me, the only door there ; 
unlocking it, I stood upon its marble floor. It was a simple 
chapel, the pictures and stools and images such as are seen 
in thousands of Romish churches. But the marble floor was 
largely made of sepulchral slabs on which were recorded the 
names and virtues of the nuns who were buried underneath ! 
How sad was this obituary ! What a mausoleum was here ! 
How many weaiy, wretched, aching hearts had rested in this 
cold bed ! I read the epitaphs, and some inscriptions on the 
walls, and mused among the tombs on the wreck and ruin of 
young lives, tortured and murdered and buried here, by the 
terrible machinery of a Church that, through long centuries, 
has perpetuated successive living sacrifices of blooming 
Roman maidens on these altars of superstition, imposture 
and crime. For what is martyrdom by fire, or the wheel, or 
the axe, or by lions in the arena, compared with the long- 
drawn-out agony of a young lady who eats with a skeleton at 
her side, and sleeps in a coffin and plays with a corpse, and 
this for years, till sweet death comes in person, and releases 
her from torment by clasping her in his cold and chaste 
embrace ! 

The little key let me into a side chamber, the cell or clois- 
ter of a nun, fitted up as a show or specimen, and perhaps 
quite unlike the real cells into which the "profanum vulgus," 
or persons of the male persuasion, may never enter. It was a 
room about ten feet square, with a chair and table in it : 
beyond it a closet with a crucifix on the wall, and, still 
farther, a cell just large enough to hold a person in a chair : 
and in the wall was a perforated plate through which the 
nun is reputed to whisper the story of her sins into the ear of 
an invisible priest who sits in the outer court, and by a 
pleasing fiction is supposed never to come within these walls. 

When the Mother Superior gives an audience, it is an affair 
of state more mysterious than the approach to the celestial 
Emperor of China. She sits in the midst of her oratory 
veiled in black from head to foot, and the visitor sees nothing 



284 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

but this statuesque drapery concealing the abbess. Pope 
Gregory XVI. entered by his divine right to go where he 
pleased among the faithful, and wishing to see the lady with 
whom he conversed, he said : 

" Sister, please to raise your veil." 

" No, father," she answered, " it is against the rules." 

The Pope asked very much the same question that I did, 
and got about the same answer. 

Having penetrated as far into the convent as the rules of 
the order permit, I returned with the keys, and dropping 
them into the cavity, the sound summoned the unseen sister 
to the portal, and she asked me, 

" Were you pleased with the church ?" 

I told her that I had been very much interested in what L 
had seen, but would be pleased to see more. She laughed 
again right merrily, and chatted on gaily as if it were a pleasure 
to have some one to talk with, though he could not come in. 
I was well assured from what I heard, her tones of voice, her 
cheerful words, and her right merry laugh, that they have 
good times inside in spite of death's heads, cross-bones and 
coffins. I do not believe it is half so bad to be buried alive, 
as they would have it to appear, and a lady, who was per- 
mitted by special favor to visit the nuns, testifies that they 
are ruddy and rosy-looking girls notwithstanding their 
ghostly employments. Twenty-seven are there now, and I 
left them with more satisfaction than when I knocked at their 
inhospitable door. 



THE STORY AND THE CHURCH OF ST. CECILIA. 

" I have an angel which thus loveth me, 
That with great love, whether I wake or sleep, 
Is ready aye my body for to keep." 

— C haucer. 

In former visits in Rome I carried away no image of marble 
loveliness that lingered so tenderly in the memory as that of 



THE CHURCH OF ST. CECILIA. 285 

the statue of the martyr Saint Cecilia. And now, when for the 
third time, I came to this city filled, above ground and below, 
in its churches and palaces and piazzas, with the masterpieces 
of the world's art, there was not a statue or a painting I so 
much desired to see again as this. It is across the Tiber, in 
the church that bears her name. But let me tell you her 
story. 

Cecilia was a Roman girl of noble parentage, and lived in 
the third century. She had great wealth and great beauty, and 
at the early age of sixteen was married to Valerian. He was 
a pagan, but was soon converted to Christianity by the pray- 
ers and conversation and holy living of his young wife, who 
had been brought to Christ before she married. He was 
baptized before he confessed to her that he had been con- 
verted. But she knew it, and when he returned from his 
baptism he found her, with an angel, singing praises to God 
for his salvation. She persuaded his brother, Tiburtius, also 
to embrace the faith of the gospel, and both of them suffered 
martyrdom, as they were publicly known as zealous advocates 
of the new religion which was to overturn the idols and 
temples of the heathen. 

The governor of the city, under the Emperor Septimius Se- 
verus, knew that Cecilia had come into the possession of great 
riches by the death of her relatives, and he had her arrested 
in her own house, and condemned to death. In the houses 
of the wealthy Romans there was a room, adjoining the baths, 
called a Sudarium y into which steam was admitted while the 
person wishing to take a bath lay on a marble couch. In one 
of these rooms she was shut up, and the heated steam driven 
in upon her three days, by which time it would be expected 
that she was boiled. But when the door was opened, she was 
as safe as Daniel in the den, or the three children in the fur- 
nace. God had sent cooling showers to moderate the heat 
of the steam, and Cecilia was the more radiant and lovely for 
the terrible ordeal she had passed through. She was a singer 
" of such ravishing sweetness and power that the angels came 
down from heaven to listen and to join their voices with hers." 
When the door of the bath was opened she was singing the 



286 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

praises of her Saviour, and the coarse men who were to carry 
off her body were overcome by the melody of her voice. 

Her deliverance from death was looked upon as a miracle, 
and the governor was afraid to make another attempt in 
public to put her to death. A man was sent to cut off her 
head in the secret chambers of her own house. He struck 
with the axe three times and did not succeed. The Roman 
law forbade the victim to be stricken more than three times. 
The records of her martyrdom say : " The Christians found 
her bathed in her blood, and during three days she preached 
and taught like a doctor of the Church, with such sweetness 
and eloquence that four hundred pagans were converted. On 
the third day she was visited by Pope Urban, to whose care 
she tenderly committed the poor whom she nourished, and 
to him she bequeathed the palace in which she had lived, that 
it might be consecrated as a temple to the Saviour. Then, 
thanking God that he considered her a humble woman, 
worthy to share the glory of his heroes, and with her eyes 
apparently fixed upon the heavens opening before her, she 
departed to her heavenly bridegroom." 

The Christians buried her in the Catacombs, and all trace 
of the spot and of the remains was lost in the lapse of time. 
Where her palace stood, the church that bears her name, and 
in which we are now standing, was built immediately after her 
death, A.D. 280. More than five hundred years roll on, and 
the body of the saint was nowhere to be found. Then Pope 
Paschal I. fell asleep one morning during the service in St. 
Peter's — just think of it, a Pope asleep during morning pray- 
ers — while thinking of St. Cecilia, and longing to find her 
burial place. In a vision she appeared to him and told him 
where she was lying, by the side of her husband and his 
brother in the catacomb of Calixtus. The next day — why 
not that day does not appear — he was obedient to the vision, 
and found the lovely saint robed in gold tissue, with linen 
clothes steeped in blood at her feet. She was not lying on 
her back, as a body in a tomb, but on her right side, as if in 
bed, with her knees slightly drawn up, and having the appear- 
ance of one asleep. She was now removed to the Church, 



THE CHURCH OF ST. CECILIA. 287 

which was rebuilt with more magnificence than the first, and 
the body was laid under the altar. It slept there eight hun- 
dred years more, when the tomb was opened and the body 
was lying in the same peaceful state, with all the robes of the 
grave preserved in the freshness of the burial morn. The 
Pope of the period and all the people hastened to the church 
and gazed with edifying wonder on the sleeping form. The 
greatest sculptor of the day made a copy of the figure, and 
this is the beautiful marble statue which we are now seeing 
as it lies on Cecilia's tomb, in which are her remains. 

" It is the statue of a lady, perfect in form, and affecting 
from resemblance to reality in the drapery of white marble, 
and her gravitation of the limbs" is such as no living form 
assumes, but is perfectly true to the attitudes of the dead. 
The artist has placed this inscription on his work : " Behold 
the body of the most holy virgin Cecilia, whom I myself saw 
lying incorrupt in her tomb. I have in this marble expressed 
for thee, the same saint in the very same posture of body." 

There are in the church, scenes in the life of the saint, her 
own picture by Gzcido, tombs of illustrious men, and the altar 
canopy with statuettes of the saint and her companions in 
suffering for Christ ; but all the interest of the visit centred 
in this remarkable statue and the room in which the saint 
was first called to endure torture. The Sudarium is a few 
steps below the floor of the church, a marble-floored apart- 
ment, with appliances for hot water and steam, and we are 
assured that this is the very same chamber in the palace of 
Cecilia in which she was three days and nights subjected to 
the boiling heat, without experiencing any bodily harm. Such 
is the story. The kindly priest who showed us the church 
related these incidents with great simplicity, and perhaps 
believed them all. 

In the gallery of Bologna we saw the celebrated picture by 
Raphael of St. Cecilia and her maiden choir. Copies have 
made it familiar the world over. Cecilia is the muse of music 
now. Her name mingles sweetly in song, and St. Cecilia's 
day is more famous in the poem of Dryden than in the Romish 
Calendar. 



IRE N^ US LETTERS. 



THE BEGGAR'S CHURCH AND THE BEGGARS 
OF ITALY. 

A row of beggars stood in front of the church. The 
church is on the corner of the Piazza Santa Maria in Monti, 
and, like hundreds of others in Rome and over Italy, has 
nothing in its front to attract attention. The beggars stood 
on the steps, and did not beg as I approached and passed 
through the line into the porch. It was something quite 
unusual to meet a beggar and not be begged. And they 
were very ragged, very dirty, very miserable-looking beggars, 
but they did not beg. 

I passed them and went into the church. Over the altar 
is a painting, not of the Saviour, not of an Apostle, not even 
of the Virgin Mary, of whom there are more pictures than of 
all the saints in the world. The painting represents a beg- 
gar in the midst of the great Roman Coliseum, giving 
money to a group of beggars around him, a beggar giving to 
beggars ! 

On the left of the altar is a tomb, and in it or in front of it 
lies exposed at full length, in beggar raiment, in the gown of 
a wandering pilgrim, with staff and scrip, the body of a man, 
a mummied man indeed, disgusting with its skinny, dark, 
dead visage, grinning as if in mockery. 

His name is Joseph Labre. He was born in Boulogne, 
France, in 1748, and his parents were not poor. But, at a 
very early age, he took to a life of vagrant beggary in the 
name of religion. The rules of two or three holy orders that 
he entered did not agree with his health, and he heard a 
voice within calling him to a life of travel in penitence and 
charity. Through seven years he wandered in Europe, visit- 
ing the most celebrated churches of the Holy Virgin, and in 
those years it is said that he travelled on foot five thousand 
leagues. In the year 1777 he went to Italy and took up his 
abode in Rome, in the largest building in it, even in the Col- 
iseum itself. Sometimes he slept in the porch of the 
churches, but as he became infirm, he made a hermit's cell in 



THE BEGGARS OF ITALY. 289 

the Coliseum, from which he often sallied out to beg, return- 
ing there to pass the night. In this arena, where the games 
and fights and martyrdoms in ages past entertained the 
Romans, Labre held his levees of beggars, and distributed 
among them the money and the bread he had received from 
others. Thousands of visitors, coming here, would take an 
interest in the hermit of the Coliseum, and the romance of 
the place and the story of the religious tramp who had 
scoured all Europe on foot, would naturally excite the curi- 
osity of those who found him there, and it was a pleasure to 
give him something to keep body and soul together. His 
receipts were large, and if he had been disposed to hoard as 
a miser he might have made a heap of money. But he got 
only to give, and at night was as poor as in the morning. 

It was not far from the Coliseum to the Church of St. Mary 
in the Mount, and there he resorted to say his prayers. One 
day he fell on the steps and hurt himself so severely that he 
did not long survive. Being carried into a house near the 
church, he died there April 16, 1783. The bed on which he 
died, and his crucifix, and the small earthly possessions a 
wandering mendicant might possess, are preserved with pious 
care in the room that was made holy by his death, and his 
body, being suitably prepared for the purpose, is laid in his 
favorite church in full view of the admiring people. 

In the year i860 the Pope canonized him, that is, made 
him a saint, and appointed a day — the day of his death, April 
16 — to be observed in his honor. It is required of a saint 
that he be able to stand a trial, which is conducted in due 
form, though he may have been dead a thousand years. All 
the forms are observed, and if the verdict is that the man 
was all right, the Pope issues a decree of saintship. It was 
attempted recently to make a saint of Christopher Columbus, 
but he did not pass, though he was certainly a much better 
man than many others who are invoked in the Church. 

Columbus gave a new world to the Church and to man- 
kind, but he was no saint in the Pope's esteem. Labre gave 
the alms he received to beggars like himself, and won the 
palm of beatitude. By these honors to beggary the Church 



290 I REN ALUS LETTERS. 

of Rome teaches that it is no disgrace to beg, and that it is a 
virtue to give to beggars. The vast number of beggars in 
Romish countries is not caused by the poverty of the people. 
They are as able to provide things needful as the inhabitants 
of Protestant countries are, and far better able than they are 
in many Protestant lands. But it is held to be meritorious 
to beg, and the tribe of beggars in the cities of Italy arc 
among the worst of the population. They gamble among 
themselves, and the winner goes off to spend his money in 
drink, and the loser fastens upon the first victim he meets to 
beg for more. The native Italian people do not give to beg- 
gars, to any great extent. The money comes from travellers, 
who find it easier to give a trifle than to refuse. Vallery tells 
of one of the hospitals in Rome where there are fifty " Sisters" 
who are nurses, who get drunk, make love, and carry-on gener- 
ally, and all this in the name of charity. In New York the 
Romish people will fight fiercely to get all the children into 
their reformatories if the State is to pay for their support, 
but the same people will let their poor go by hundreds to the 
Protestant hospitals and never give a cent for their care. 
The charity of Romanism is a sham. Under the miserable 
pretence that so much given will pay for so much pardon, 
works will work out salvation, and heaven can be bought 
with alms, the Romish Church neglects her own poor and 
leaves them largely to the tender mercies of Protestants, or 
to beg on the street from door to door. 

Two women in the black habit and white cap of some sis- 
terhood have just been to my door with an appeal for alms. 
As I ascended to my room in the hotel a man in priestly 
attire was pacing the corridor. I had scarcely sat down 
before he was in my room begging. We go to a church and 
run the gauntlet of beggars before we enter, and are beset by 
them when we come out. There are not half so many now 
as there were twenty years ago, but there are so many as to 
make beautiful Italy almost a nuisance. Beggary is the nat- 
ural outcome of Romanism. Beggary will be found to some 
extent in all lands, but its home and source, its parentage, is 
the doctrine of the Church of Rome. That Church will beg- 



JEWS' QUARTER IN ROME. 291 

gar any country which it converts. It does well for itself to 
make a saint of the beggar Labre and worship him once a 
year. 



JEWS' QUARTER IN ROME. 

"It is most absurd and unsuitable that the Jews, whose 
one crime has plunged them into everlasting slavery, under 
the plea that Christian magnanimity allows them, should 
presume to dwell and mix with Christians, not bearing any 
mark of distinction, and should have Christian servants, yea, 
even buy houses." 

The sentiment and morality of the statement which I have 
quoted are abhorrent to all the right feelings of humanity, 
but I will prove it to be good doctrine according to the latest 
decrees of the Church of Rome. It is an extract from a 
manifesto put forth officially and solemnly by Pope Paul IV., 
A.D. 1 555-59. The Pope is infallible, said the last great Coun- 
cil. Therefore the sentiment I have quoted is all correct. 

In other words, the Pope made a great mistake, and is not 
infallible, or that is good doctrine. 

I think the Pope denied Christ when he issued that awful 
bull against the Jews. While they were committing that 
crime, Christ prayed, " Father, forgive them, they know not 
what they do." Yet the Pope, claiming to be the vicar of 
Christ on the earth, would deny the children of those Jews, 
1500 years after the sin of their fathers, the common rights of 
humanity. Christ forgave the fathers : the Pope would visit 
the fathers' sin upon the children unto thousands of genera- 
tions. 

And, on this diabolical principle, the Jews have suffered at 
the hands of the apostasy such cruel wrongs as make one 
blush for his common heritage of manhood with such a 
Church. 

I was wandering in the Jews' quarter in Rome, and came 
upon a church with this inscription in Hebrew and in Latin : 



292 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

"All day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient 
and gainsaying people." A painting represents the Crucifix- 
ion of Christ. And this church was erected by a Jew con- 
verted to the religion of Rome, and, in the true spirit of his 
new religion, he put up this sign and these words that they 
might taunt and aggravate the people who could not but be- 
hold the picture and the text. Pope Gregory XIII. improved 
upon this expedient, and compelled all the Jews in Rome to 
hear a sermon every week, while his officers were sent into 
the Jews' quarter " to drive men, women and children into the 
church, with scourges, and to lash them while there if they 
were inattentive." And one of the pious Popish writers says 
"it was a moving sight to see these besotted, blind, restive 
and perishing Hebrews, haled, as it were, by the head and 
hair, and against their obstinate hearts, brought to taste the 
heavenly grace." 

This revolting mission work, more like the Mahometan 
Propagation Society than a Christian Church, was prosecuted 
relentlessly until the time of Pius IX. He began his reign 
as a liberal, and its early years were signalized by removing 
some of the atrocious restrictions imposed on the Jews. 
Before his day they were confined by night to their section 
of the town, gates being kept fastened across the streets to 
keep them in. But their treatment from the time of the 
Popes becoming the rulers of the city, has been a perpetual 
stain upon the Church. Far worse have these so-called 
Christians used them than the heathen did. They were 
brought as slaves by Pompey, but they became. citizens, and 
rose to office, wealth and power. Some of the Roman Em- 
perors oppressed them severely, but it remained for a Pope 
to " forbid Christians to trade, to eat, or to dwell with them ; 
and to prohibit the Jews from walking in the streets, or from 
occupying any public post, or to build any new synagogues." 
During the long period of two centuries the Jews were com- 
pelled to furnish every year a number of their people to run 
races in the Corso during Carnival, as horses do now, " amid 
the hoots of the populace." The asses ran first, then the 
Jews, — naked, with only a band round their loins, — then the 



JEWS" QUARTER IN ROME. 293 

buffaloes, then the Barbary horses. Afterwards they were 
allowed to commute by paying an annual fine instead of sub- 
mitting to this beastly association. 

Pope Sixtus V. was kindly disposed toward the Jews, 
pleading, as his apology for not being hard on them, that 
they were "the family from whom Christ came." He en- 
couraged them to pursue trades, traffic with Christians, build 
houses and synagogues ; but all his kindness was lost on his 
infallible successors, who repealed his laws and made the 
burdens of the Jews greater than ever before. Innocent 
XIII. confined their business to trading in old clothes, rags, 
and iron junk. It is quite probable that the pursuit of this 
business has become hereditary among them,, and hence it is 
that in London, New York, Warsaw or Rome, the old-clo'- 
man is a Jew, and the junk shop is kept by one of the same 
persuasion. 

All these restrictive laws are now done away, but the Jews 
continue to dwell in one quarter, and to pursue the same sort 
of trade, enlarged indeed, but substantially in the same line. 
They are the scavengers of the markets of the world, the 
hoarders of the odds and ends of everything : antiquaries in 
raiment, and working by stealth to dispose of their wares. 
They deal in diamonds, but they make no sign. They will 
sell you the most elegant embroideries that the fingers of 
Oriental women have made, but you will not see the goods 
adorning shop windows. The seven-branched candlestick 
may be on the outer wall as a symbol of the religion within, 
but unless you have cut your wisdom-teeth, you will be as 
thoroughly done as you would be in Chatham or Wall street, 
New York. 

This Jews' quarter in Rome is called the Ghetto, from a 
Hebrew word, meaning broken, cast off, and is aptly applied 
to the people and their pursuit. There was a weird fascina- 
tion about their vile streets and shops, and their hang-dog 
looks, that led me often, and again, to wander in the midst 
of them. In every city of Europe they have been a mystery 
to me, and in Rome more than elsewhere. It may be super- 
stition, or it is a deep religious conviction, that these children 



294 I REN ALUS LETTERS, 

of Abraham are under a ban of some kind that makes them 
and their refuge a Ghetto wherever they go. I was visiting 
the Portico of Octavia, one of the most interesting of all the 
Roman ruins, for the stories that linger about it make its 
gorgeous architecture vocal with the music and song of old 
Imperial Rome: but this splendid portico is in the filthiest 
part of this Ghetto, and the daughters of Israel have the 
square for a fish market. I was at the palace of the Cenci, 
whose gloomy halls and walls are frightful with memories 
of crimes that years and oceans cannot wash away, and the 
windows look out on the square where the schools and the 
chief synagogue of the Jews proclaim the presence and the 
worship of this peculiar race. David's harp and the timbrel 
of Miriam and the brazen candlestick, are on the outside, 
and within, the Urim and Thummim are in symbols and the 
Holy of Holies, as though God still dwelt in tabernacles 
made with men's hands, and had not cast off this, his once 
covenant people. The Cenci palace looks out on this piazza, 
and cenci, in Italian, is the word for rags or shreds that are 
cast away. 

Wherever I went among them, they were sitting in the 
doors of their little dark and dirty shops, in the midst of 
heaps of rubbish, woollen and silk, red, white, and blue, all 
sorts and sizes ; while the women, sad-eyed and silent, were 
sewing steadily and deftly, converting these ragged remnants 
of the cast-off clothing of the rich and great into garments 
more gorgeous, perhaps, than the original. We read in 
works of fiction of the beauty of Jewish women : and of the 
Italians, too. But hard work, and poverty and oppression, 
and dark, damp dwellings, in a few generations, blight all 
the bloom of beauty, and leave on the bronzed cheeks, 
and matted hair and sullen brows, and tight-closed skinny 
lips, nothing to make you believe that the love song of 
Solomon could ever have been addressed to one of these : 
" Thou art fair, my love, my dove, my undefiled." But I did 
repeat, as I stood among these wretched-looking Hebrew 
mothers and maids, the words of the prophet, for I had them 
(the words and the wooden) before me: 



THE APOSTLE IN ROME. 295 

" From the daughter of Zion, all her beauty is departed ; 
she that was great among the nations, and princess among 
the provinces, how is she become tributary ! She weepeth 
sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks ; among 
all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends 
have dealt treacherously with her : they are become her ene- 
mies. Judah is gone into captivity, because of affliction, and 
because of great servitude ; she dwelleth among the heathen, 
she findeth no rest ; all her persecutors overtook her be- 
tween the straits. How hath the Lord covered the daughter 
of Zion with a cloud in his anger !" 



THE APOSTLE IN ROME. 

I was in Naples when the New York Observer came to me 
with the admirable paper in it, by Rev. Dr. Rogers, on the 
journey of Paul to Rome from Puteoli. It was the exposi- 
tion of one of the Sunday School lessons. If any reader 
overlooks those papers of Dr. Rogers because they are writ- 
ten for the Sunday School department, he misses some of 
the most interesting and instructive columns of the Observer. 
I find time, in the midst of travel, to read them, and always 
with gratitude to the author. But as I was saying : 

We had been riding out from Naples along the shores of 
that bay of all bays — what wondrous beauty it boasts — it 
was the'joy of all Italy when Pliny and Cicero, and Virgil 
and Horace, lived and wrote — it is just as lovely now as it 
was then — and nothing lovelier in the wide earth or sea ha 
since been found — we had just turned the shoulder of the 
promontory of Posilipo, and were looking off upon the 
islands, — Capri, where Garibaldi is passing the evening of 
his days, — Ischia and Proscida, — when I pointed to Pozzeoli 
on the coast, and said " That is Puteoli where the Apostle 
landed on his way to Rome : there began his journey by 
land : at the Three Taverns and Appii Forum he was met 



296 IREN&US LETTERS. 

by the brethren, and with them went by the Appian Way to 
the Imperial City." 

As we were standing on this projecting point of view, I 
Said to my friends : " This is the site of one of the most lux- 
urious and celebrated residences of the Augustan age : here 
Vadius Pollio, a Roman of vast wealth, had his villa, and 
the Emperor himself was sometimes his guest. There was 
his fish pond, and he fed his fish on his slaves, who were, at 
his pleasure, chopped up and thrown into the water for his 
carp to eat: one day when the Emperor Augustus was visit- 
ing him, a slave offended Pollio by breaking a glass, and the 
master thought to show the Emperor his greatness by order- 
ing the slave to be cut up and thrown into the water for the 
dinner of the fish. Augustus took the command into his own 
hands, and ordered all the glass in the house to be pitched into 
the water, thus giving to his friend a lesson in humanity which 
he would not soon forget. The story is useful in showing 
what was the Roman law and practice in regard to slavery 
in the time of our Saviour and the Apostles. A master 
could and did kill his slaves at his own pleasure. We must 
bear these facts in mind when we study the teachings of the 
New Testament on this much-litigated subject." 

We were looking off at the bay where Paul landed on his 
route to Rome. We have seen, in a former letter, that Peter 
left no trace of his going to Rome, or his staying there, and 
we cannot find in the writings of any of his correspondents 
or companions, or in any of his letters — of which we have 
several — the least allusion to his having been at any time in 
that city. Mr. Augustus Hare speaks of " ultra Protestants" 
doubting that Peter was in Rome. What an " ultra Protes- 
tant" is I do not know, but I do know that a man who be- 
lieves that Paul could live several years in Rome, and write 
letters to the churches in the East mentioning by name 
humble, obscure, but good Christian people, and never once 
name the great Apostle Peter if he were there, or that Peter 
could be in Rome and become the head of the Church, even 
its Pontiff, and in his writings make no mention of the city 
c r his work, or of Paul, the prisoner and Apostle, must have 



THE APOSTLE IN ROME. 297 

more credulity than any Protestant whom I ever met. The 
improbability approaching very nearly to an absurdity. 

Paul we know was in Rome ; we have his own word for 
it ; and Paul's word is good authority for all except those 
who find it in the way of their pet prejudices. Then they 
say, " That's where Paul and I differ." The ease with which 
such people dispose of Paul would be amusing, were it not 
that Paul wrote as the Spirit bade him. To set Paul aside 
is to reject the Spirit as well. However, all are agreed that 
Paul came to Rome ; and when we come to Rome also, we 
are fond of finding where he lived, and preached, and suf- 
fered. The Church of Rome has managed to have places 
distinctly marked and duly honored which the Apostle made 
memorable, and, with some little credulity, we may take the 
most of them as well-enough established. The church of 
Maria in Via Lata is built upon another church, now sub- 
terranean, and this lower one is the very house in which 
Paul was lodged when he was first brought into the city. 
He lived two years in one house, and it was large enough 
for the congregations that thronged him and disputed 
among themselves as to the truth they heard. Chrysostom 
wrote in his Homily on the Epistle to the Romans : " Though 
I could celebrate the praises of Rome for her greatness, for 
her beauty, power, wealth and warlike exploits, I pass these 
things by, and glorify her most that Paul wrote to the 
Romans, loved them, came to them, preached among them, 
and died with them." 

I have no faith in the Mamertine Prison legends, though I 
did go down into the dungeon. A little church at the foot 
of the Capitoline Hill is named "Peter in Prison," for he is 
said to have shared the dungeon with Paul, and the first 
chamber we enter below this church is Peter's prison. Dick- 
ens was much affected by the dread and gloom of this place, 
and the votive offerings hung up in it, daggers, knives, pistols, 
clubs, tools of murder, with the blood-rust on them : as if 
murder were atoned for by devoting the dagger to the church. 
I am so sick and tired of the whole drama of Romanism, 
that these things excite in me only the sense of the ridicu- 



29 8 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

lous. But the classic history of these dungeons is intensely 
thrilling. All the prisons in the world could not, together, 
unfold such a story as these great tufa rocks could tell had 
they tongues to speak. These dungeons were the city and 
State prisons before and during the reign of the emperors ! 
Catiline's conspirators were strangled here. Illustrious 
Romans have killed themselves in these pits. Jugurtha was 
starved to death in one of them. And, in the midst of such 
history, the Church of Rome infuses the puerile fancy that 
Peter rested his head against a stone which is now kissed 
with reverence by the credulous. And the dungeon is next 
disclosed where Paul and Peter were chained to a pillar 
nine months ! A spring of water in this dungeon (the 
church tells us) came in answer to Peter's prayers, but as 
the spring was mentioned by historians before Peter was 
born, it was a miracle of the imagination. 

The Palace of the Caesars is identified by Paul himself as 
the scene of his labors, his trial, his deliverance, and his 
great success as a preacher of the gospel. We know where 
the palace was, and the ruins are before us, vast, majestic, 
suggestive. Even on this spot, the most distinctly marked, 
we must guess very freely, and trust largely to the contradic- 
tory speculations of antiquarians; but the household of 
Caesar we know was within the walls of the palaces that cov- 
ered these grounds, the substructions of which are disin- 
terred, so that the sunlight of the 19th century illumines the 
chambers that were brilliant with imperial splendors in the 
first. Paul might have had a large congregation had he 
preached nowhere in Rome but in the palace of Nero. At 
the present day, the palace of the Emperor of Russia is said 
to have five thousand persons in it and in its service. The 
Roman emperors had far greater numbers of servants, re- 
tainers and courtiers about them than any modern princes 
have. We find the Basilica, or court room, in which the 
emperor in person heard law cases that were appealed to 
him. In this, or in one like it on the same ground, the 
great Apostle of the Gentiles stood to be tried for his life, 
the council of twenty judges being presided over by Nero 



THE APOSTLE IN ROME. 299 

himself. The witnesses who were to testify to his treason 
had been brought from the East, and the lawyers of the 
Jewish Sanhedrim were on hand to demand the condemna- 
tion of the prisoner. But the hearts of all men are in the 
hands of Him whom Paul served, and Nero gave the prisoner 
his life and liberty, to the confusion of the Jews and the joy 
of the Apostle's friends. 

Beyond the facts we have in the New Testament Scriptures, 
there is little to be received implicitly in regard to the life 
and death of Peter or of Paul. Prudentius states that they 
suffered death together on the banks of the Tiber. Others 
insist, with equal confidence, that a year elapsed after the 
death of Peter before Paul was slain. Eusebius, Epiphanius, 
and others, say that both men were put to death on the 29th 
day of June. As I am quite conscious that this letter is far 
from being worthy of its subject, I will follow it with a 
graphic passage from Conybeare and Howson's Life of Paul : 

THE MARTYRDOM OF PAUL. 

As the martyr and his executioners passed on (from the 
Ostian gate), their way was crowded with a motley multitude 
of goers and comers between the metropolis and its harbor 
— merchants hastening to superintend the unlading of their 
cargoes, sailors eager to squander the profits of their last 
voyage in the dissipations of the capital — officials of the 
government charged with the administration of the prov- 
inces, or the command of the legions on the Euphrates or 
the Rhine ; Chaldean astrologers, Phrygian eunuchs, danc- 
ing girls from Syria, with their painted turbans, mendicant 
priests from Egypt, howling for Osiris, Greek adventurers 
eager to coin their national cunning into Roman gold, rep- 
resentatives of the avarice and ambition, the fraud and lust, 
the superstition and intelligence of the Imperial world. 
Through the dust and tumult of that busy throng, the small 
troop of soldiers threaded their way silently, under the bright 
sky of an Italian midsummer. They were marching, though 
they knew it not, in a procession more really triumphant than 



300 IRENMUS LETTERS, 

any they had ever followed in the train of general or emperor 
along the Sacred Way. Their prisoner, now at last and for- 
ever delivered from captivity, rejoiced to follow his Lord 
"without the gate." The place of execution was not far dis- 
tant, and there the sword of the headsman ended his long 
course of sufferings, and released that heroic soul from that 
feeble body. Weeping friends took up his corpse, and car- 
ried it for burial to those subterranean labyrinths where, 
through many ages of oppression, the persecuted Church 
found refuge for the living and sepulchres for the dead. 

Thus died the apostle, the prophet and the martyr, be- 
queathing to the Church, in her government and her discip- 
line, the legacy of his apostolic labors ; leaving his prophetic 
words to be her living oracles ; pouring forth his blood to 
be the seed of a thousand martyrdoms. Thenceforth among 
the glorious company of the apostles, among the goodly fel- 
lowship of the prophets, among the noble army of martyrs, 
his name has stood pre-eminent. And wheresoever the 
Holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge 
God, there Paul of Tarsus is revered as the great teacher of 
a universal redemption and a catholic religion — the herald 
of glad tidings to all mankind. 



AGATHA AND HER DISH. 

I hate to see a priest when I go to a convent of nuns. But 
the church belonging to the Convent of Saint Agatha, in 
Rome, is now the property of the Irish Seminary, and it is 
qu i te likely that the directors have converted the convent into 
a boarding school for young ladies. This may have brought 
a couple of ladies to the convent before me, and I recognized 
them as stopping at the same hotel, and now in animated con- 
versation with a priestly professor. It is not an unusual cir- 
cumstance for Protestant parents in England, as well as 
America, to be so foolish and wicked as to place their daugh- 
ters in these institutions. The end thereof is that the daugh- 



AGATHA AND HER DISH 301 

ter goes into the Church of Rome, and perhaps into a con- 
vent. She is never to her parents what she was before. 

A sleepy old janitor, who seemed to regard his duty as an 
intolerable burden, roused himself a little when I rang, and 
gave a groan of assent to my request to see the convent. As 
usual, the sight amounted to nothing more than admission 
to the church and a few rooms around it. 

" Daniel O'Connell," were the words conspicuous in the 
midst of an epitaph on a monument which stood in the side- 
wall. The distinguished Irish Agitator died at Genoa on his 
way to Rome, bequeathing his heart to the city he could not 
reach. It was brought here and deposited beneath this 
monument : which represents the orator in the British House 
of Commons refusing to take the anti-Roman Catholic decla- 
ration. The vanity that consumed him while living shines in 
his thought that his heart would be a treasure in a city so 
full of great men's bones and names. 

Cardinal Antonelli's family tomb is close at hand, elegantly 
fitted up at his own expense not long before his death. His 
palace is near the church. 

But the church is Saint Agatha's, and, of course, we are to 
find her, or her remains, or her statue, something to identify 
her with the house over which she is supposed to preside. 
On the right side of the high altar, and in a beautiful chapel, 
stands a gilt statue of the lovely saint, as large as life : her 
breasts exposed in full view, and she holds extended in one 
hand a plate on which two balls, to represent female breasts, 
are lying. One would not know what they were unless famil- 
iar with the tragical story of the Sainted Agatha. I give it 
in the words of the legends of the Holy Virgins : 

" Agatha was a maiden of Catania, in Sicily, whither Decius 
sent Quintianus as governor, He, inflamed by the beauty of 
Agatha, tempted her with rich gifts and promises, but she 
repulsed him with disdain. Then he ordered her to be 
bound and beaten with rods, and sent two of his slaves to 
tear her bosom with iron shears, and, as her blood flowed 
forth, she said to him : ' O thou cruel tyrant ! art thou not 
ashamed to treat me thus ? Hast thou not thyself been fed 



SO 2 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

at thy mother's breasts ? ' Thus only did she murmur. And 
in the night a venerable man came to her, bearing a vase of 
ointment, and before him walked a youth bearing a torch. 
It was the holy Apostle Peter, and the youth was an angel, 
but Agatha knew it not, though such a glorious light filled 
the prison that the guards fled in terror. Then Peter made 
himself known and ministered to her, restoring with heavenly 
balm her wounded breasts. Quintianus, infuriated, demanded 
who had healed her ? She replied : * He whom I confess and 
adore with heart and lips; he hath sent his apostle, who 
has healed me/ Then Quintianus caused her to be thrown 
upon a great fire, but instantl y an earthquake arose, and the 
people, in terror, cried, ' This visitation is sent because of the 
maiden Agatha/ So he caused her to be taken from the fire 
and carried back to prison, where she prayed aloud that now, 
having proved her faith, she might be freed from pain, and 
see the glory of God ! And her prayer was answered, and 
her spirit instantly departed into glory." 

On the fifth of February her vespers are sung in this church 
by the nuns, and the words of the anthem are exceedingly 
touching and beautiful, as they celebrate the peculiar nature 
of her sufferings, her wonderful support and final triumph. 
It is a responsive song between the Apostle and the virgin 
when he comes to her prison to heal her wounds. 

In another church I have seen the picture of Agatha repre- 
senting her with her breasts actually cut off and lying at her 
feet, while the streams of blood are flowing from the ghastly 
wounds. Here, however, she holds them in the dish, while a 
new pair present themselves as a miraculous restoration, or 
rather a new creation, for they could not well be in two places 
at the same time. But nothing is too much for the faith of 
ignorance, and in these legends the absurdity only heightens 
the interest with which they are received. Rome has a litera- 
ture made of it. The highest art has consecrated it with the 
genius that renders these stories immortal. They are poetry. 
Not true in fact, but telling to the imagination of all, and to 
the belief of many, of the constancy with which the young and 
lovely maidens endured all sufferings, rather than bring dis- 



AGATHA AND HER DISH. 303 

honor upon the name of Christ. We do not believe the 
legends. But we may well ask ourselves if we have the 
martyr spirit in the hour of temptation ? Is the name of the 
Master so dear, his cause and honor so precious that we, 
strong men, or brave women, would take joyfully the tortures 
which delicate maids endured rather than put dishonor 
upon the Cross of Christ. I frankly confess that, in the 
midst of these monuments of martyrdom, I often fear that 
with the age of persecution has also gone the martyr spirit. 
We are in an age when religion costs no self-denial that tells. 
We are going to glory on "flowery beds of ease." Yet if the 
time does come, as it may, when the Master calls for witnesses 
to the truth, I doubt not that the piety of the day we live in 
would yield blood as freely as it gives money now. Our songs 
boast of our willingness to give up all for Him who for us 
was crucified ; perhaps we would take up the cross and go 
with it to our Calvary at the Master's call. 

It was quite dark when I was done with my meditations in 
front of this strange statue. The grouty old janitor was very 
impatient to shut up. He led me through long passages 
where large boxes of plants were standing, beauty and gloom 
strangely blended in this odd assemblage. Everything in 
these Romish churches, convents and colleges is strange to 
us outside. They have attractions for the sensuous and 
superficial. The more I am in them the plainer is the path 
from a form of Protestantism that worships the visible, to 
the Romanism that worships nothing else. All that is here 
addresses the senses. It is materialism in marble and paint, 
and incense and music. It once had an elevation of soul 
that rejoiced in the almost divine imitations by Raphael and 
Michael Angelo. Now the descendants of those worshippers 
of beauty adore a tinselled baby in the same church where 
the genius of the old masters makes the very air luminous 
with the majesty of art. Romanism, in its second childhood, 
finds its inspiration in the sight of a gilded virgin holding 
her breasts in a dish ! 



304 IRENMUS LETTERS. 



THE SUNDAY EVENING SUPPER. 

11 Day of all the week the best, 
Emblem of eternal rest." 

My pleasantest recollections of childhood are of the Sab- 
bath. Brought up in the strictest school of family religion, 
and never having a doubt that the first day of the week is 
the Lord's day, it has always been to me for a wonder that 
good people of this generation, or any other, should regard 
the Sabbath as a day of gloom, or a bore. That it was in my 
father's house a bright, glad, good day, is my recollection of 
it, and it should be the present experience of all Christian 
households. 

I remember reading years ago a New England tale by Mrs. 
Stowe or her sister, in which the way of keeping the Sab- 
bath in her father's house was ridiculed : the children were 
described as sitting up straight reading their Bibles, afraid 
to smile, while the mirth of all was provoked by one of the 
youngsters getting hold of a grasshopper and making fun 
with it. To them the day was a weariness, the house was a 
prison, and religion irksome. My experience was altogether 
of another sort. We did indeed obey the old couplet — 

M I must not work, I must not play, 
Upon God's holy Sabbath day," 

—-but we were taught and shown that there are enjoyments 
for children so much better than mere play, that we did not 
want anything more entertaining than the occupations fur- 
nished for us, and in which the parents shared. 

The mornings were short, and the duties were many, before 
church. We had breakfast later on Sunday morning than on 
any other, because we were taught that physical rest was one 
of the duties of the day, and it was right, and perhaps a duty, 
to lie in bed later. The interval between breakfast and 
church was employed in pleasant reading and conversation, 
and the two services of the sanctuary, with the Sabbath 



THE SUNDAY EVENING SUPPER. 305 

school, filled up the greater part of the day. The services 
were separated by a short intermission only, as the people 
were chiefly farmers, many of them coming several miles to 
church, and it was important for them to get home in time 
to do the chores before nightfall. This arrangement threw 
the meals out of their usual seasons. We had to do as others 
did ; we carried lunch to church and ate it between services ; 
and had a light repast on coming home in the early part of 
the afternoon. This being over, we read and learned the 
catechism and portions of Scripture, and hymns, which 
lessons now remain as the most important religious treasures 
that we ever earned. 

As the shades of evening gathered, and the candles were 
lighted, — for we had no lamps, and gas was not known, — we 
met in the parlor, and there was what may well be called 
" the church in the house." The father of the family was the 
priest, the patriarch, the shepherd of the flock. We repeated 
the Catechism, and hymns, and conversed with our parents 
on "the subject of religion." Wonderful, is it not? But we 
did, and thought it the most natural, proper, and pleasant 
thing in the world to do. And in the midst of it the father, 
with a majestic bass voice that could easily be heard half a 
mile, and the mother, with a soft, celestial air, — that now falls 
on my ear from among the angels, and brings tears like drops 
of morning dew as I write, — and all the children, piping 
according to the measure of song to each one given, the 
whole filling the house with music, sang : 

" My God, permit my tongue 
This joy to call Thee mine, 
And let my early cries prevail 
To taste Thy love divine. 

For life without Thy love 

No relish can afford ; 
No joy can be compared with this, 

To serve and please the Lord." 

Each one of us was conversed with, that his peculiar 
tendencies, habits and wants might be touched with the hand 



306 IREN& US LETTERS, 

of parental love ; the more impulsive checked, the weaker 
strengthened, the wayward reclaimed, and all fortified with 
godly counsel, and encouraged with Christian hope. There 
was never a thought in that circle of boys and girls of con- 
finement, of restraint, of severity or fear. We knew what the 
Sabbath was, and what it was for, and we enjoyed it as we 
did every other privilege and pleasure in its time and place. 
And when we had gone through with the lessons and songs, 
and the holy converse of that twilight hour, the Sunday 
Evening Supper came. 

In those days it was the habit of Christian families — and 
the same good habit prevails now — of putting as little labor 
as possible on the man-servant and the maid-servant and the 
horses, and there was no needless cooking done in the house. 
But Sunday was not a fast-day. It should never be. It is a 
feast-day, a holyday, a holiday, and while the feasting is to 
be done more on spiritual than carnal things, it is also true 
that it is well to worship God on that day in the enjoyment 
of the best gifts of his Providence and his Grace. We always 
had a good stepper on Sunday night. The little children who 
were wont to wait until the second table, now had their seats 
with the older ones at the first. The table was lengthened 
for the occasion. Cheerfulness gave a charm to the feast. 
The fare was very simple, for six hundred dollars a year — and 
that paid partly in hay, wood and potatoes — with no parson- 
age did not permit a family of ten to indulge in many luxu- 
ries. But away back into the first quarter of this century 
my memory goes, and is greeted with the fragrance and the 
flavor of that homely meal. Since those times I have supped 
with Presidents and Prime Ministers, with Poets, Philoso- 
phers and men and women whose names the world will not 
forget, but there is no evening entertainment which lives in 
my recollection, a well-spring of pleasure, so joyously as that 
Sunday night supper in my father's house. It lacked no 
element of enjoyment. There was no levity, but there was 
something better, intelligent cheerfulness ; the incidents of 
the day, the curiosities of rural Christian life, the parish 
gossip, always exchanged at church on Sunday, and over 



THE SUNDAY EVENING SUPPER. 307 

which we chatted with good humor at night ; there was the 
boundless store of religious anecdote that my father — a 
finished scholar and a man of the world also — possessed, with 
which he loved to entertain his company, and his children 
most of all. 

Thus the Sabbath was a delight. We grew up with the 
idea as part of our mental experience, not to be questioned, 
but accepted as the pleasantest truth in the history of a week, 
that Sunday was the glad rest day from study and labor, 
when something higher and sweeter than daily toil or sports, 
was to be ours. As we were commanded to work six days, 
so we were permitted to rest one day, and spend the whole 
time in such pleasures as the spiritual part of our natures 
craved. And when a day had thus been spent, there are no 
words that more aptly expressed the genuine emotions of 
child-life than these : 

" My willing soul would stay 
In such a frame as this ; 
And sit and sing herself away 
To everlasting bliss." 

Do you ask me what was the effect of such training in 
after life ? Well, it is not for me to say much about that. 
But if any one of the large household had grown up with an 
aversion to the Lord's day, and breaking away from the 
restraints of religious instruction, had become an unbeliever 
or a prodigal, I could not have written these lines. But now, 
when the youngest of them has gray hairs, and part of the 
group has crossed the flood, it is joy to feel sure that all, 
parents and children, will sit down together at the Sunday 
Evening Supper where Sabbaths have no end. 



308 IR^ENEUS LETTERS. 



MISERIES OF BEING REPORTED IN THE NEWS- 
PAPERS. 

Thirty and forty years ago there was more verbatim report- 
ing done in the newspapers, than is done now. So many mat- 
ters crowd upon the press and the people, that there is little 
room for long speeches, and no time to read them. Some men 
won wide repute as reporters many years ago. Mr. Gales, of 
the National Intelligencer, was a distinguished reporter, and a 
very prominent public man. Arthur J. Stansbury made a 
name and money by his perfect reports of speeches in Congress. 
He reported, for the N. Y. Observer, the great ecclesiastical 
trial, for heresy, of Dr. Lyman Beecher. Henry J. Raymond, 
founder of the N. Y. Times, was an admirable reporter. He 
frequently reported public meetings for the Observer ; he was 
the hardest worker on the press whom I ever knew. Neither 
Raymond nor Stansbury used shorthand. They wrote the 
principal words of the speaker, and filled up the sentences 
afterwards. Some reporters drop all vowels and silent letters, 
and easily add them in writing out. They make sad blunders 
sometimes: Dr. Bethune said "the devil sowed tares;" the 
reporter made him say " sawed trees :" using the right con- 
sonants but adding the wrong vowels. No speaker suffers so 
many things at the hands of reporters as ministers. The 
reporter is usually one who is unfamiliar with " the language of 
Canaan," and a man who could give a political speech with 
accuracy, is all astray on a sermon. He does not understand 
the subject, and makes of his pothooks nonsense, when he 
writes out his notes. He was a very able reporter who was 
coming down Broadway, and seeing a large sign, M Panorama 
of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress," turned in to see it, but was 
refused admission. He said, " I'm a member of the press, a 
reporter on the Daily ." Being told that he was a stran- 
ger and could not be admitted . " Well," said he, " let me see 
Mr. Bunyan, he'll let me in." This young man knew every 
politician in the country, by name, but had never heard of 



MISERIES OF BEING REPORTED. 3°9 

old John Bunyan, and supposed him to be the proprietor of 
the Panorama. 

There is also, at the present day, a propensity to fun, wag- 
gery, amusement, that has sadly interfered with accurate 
reporting. My own sufferings in this way have prompted 
this writing. I gave a lecture on the East last winter : and 
the papers reported me as saying that, while I was in Con- 
stantinople, the Sultan invited me to visit his harem, and 
that I did so. Some wag did the incident into rhyme. The 
papers copied it, and now I get copies from distant parts 
of the country, sent to me by astonished friends, who want 
to know if it be true? I did not mention the word Con- 
stantinople, sultan, harem, or anything of the kind. I 
said, when in Egypt, the Chamberlain of the Palace of the 
Khedive gave me an entertainment in the banquet hall. 
Out of that the reporter made the story of the Sultan and 
the harem. 

Much worse was my experience in speaking of " wit in the 
pulpit :" the reporter put into my mouth a tissue of words 
that had no sort of relation to what I said : words that mis- 
represented the purpose and sentiment of my discourse : and 
now I am getting letters filled with abuse ; one calls me a 
"liar "and a "mass of stupidity," and destitute of "brains 
and religion too ;" and all this because a well-meaning but 
incompetent reporter made me say what I never thought of 
saying, and would not have said if I had thought of it. 

Monday morning we have a fearful deluge of reported 
sermons. Some of them are made without even hearing the 
discourse. A reporter takes two or three churches, and flies 
from one to another : gets part of one and another sermon : 
asks what was the text : writes out what he can glean : draws 
on his fancy for the most of it, and that is the report ! Some 
pastors in this city have told me that sermons have been 
attributed to them of which they never said one word ! 
Others have had the first part of their discourse reported, 
and the conclusion invented. 

But this is not the worst. A periodical is now issued, pro- 
fessing to give the sermons of the day : these reports in the 



310 IRE A?M US LETTERS. 

newspapers, thus manufactured, are reprinted as the actual 
discourses of the living preachers. I have known these reports 
to be sent to the preacher for his correction ; and, on his 
declining to perform the impossible task, the horrible jumble 
of unmitigated nonsense was embalmed in the periodical and 
sent out to the world. This is a fraud on the religious pub- 
lic, deserving exposure and punishment. Only last week I 
received a newspaper from a distant city, containing a sharp 
criticism of a sentiment imputed to Rev. Dr. Duryea : it had 
been in one of these reports ; but any thoughtful writer would 
hesitate before he condemned a man for error on the tes- 
timony of a newspaper sketch of his sermon. No public 
speaking requires greater precision of statement than that of 
religious doctrine. Yet any youth, of either sex, feels quite 
competent to give an outline of the profoundest sermon. 
There are some religious speeches easily enough reported, 
thin, diffuse, repetitious, hortatory : years ago I was report- 
ing a public meeting in Boston : a distinguished divine was 
on the platform, speaking ; but he was so slow with his ideas, 
and fluent of words, that I could easily write out in full all 
that he said worth reading. A man at my elbow suddenly 
whispered to me, — 

" Why, he didn't say that P 

"No," said I, " but he will in a moment," and, sure enough, 
he did. 

The wretched reports of lectures, sermons, etc., that we 
have, is not the fault of the reporters always or chiefly. They 
rush from the place of meeting to the office and, writing out 
their report, deliver it to the managing editor, perhaps at 
midnight : he cuts it up and down : slashes out what little 
sense and connection it had, and serves the miserable 
remainder to the public, to the infinite disgust of the speaker 
and with no sort of edification of the reader. I personally 
know able and learned men who will not look at the reports 
of their own speeches, so mortifying is the picture made of 
them. Some men will not speak when they are exposed to 
this fearful penalty. And very few men now think it worth 
while to follow up an incorrect report with any attempt to 



THE FIFE AND THE VIOLIN, 311 

get the wrong righted. Let it go, they say, it will be sooner 
forgotten if let alone. 

It is impossible to give a satisfactory condensed report of a 
sermon or lecture. A speaker may do the work himself, but 
any one else will omit what ought to be said, and say the 
thing that might be left unsaid. And that is the reason why 
sketches of sermons are so imperfect and often positively 
bad. They do not give the pith and gist of the preacher's 
work. They bestow more abundant honor on the parts that 
lack. They are a failure. 

You must not believe all you read in the newspapers, for, 
with the best intentions and the greatest painstaking, mistakes 
will happen. Especially is this true with regard to reports 
of public speakers. You may be entertained, and perhaps 
instructed by the report, but the sermon may never have been 
heard in a pulpit, and the unhappy preacher would not know 
it was supposed to be his, if it were not attributed to him in 
print. 



THE FIFE AND THE VIOLIN. 

"The First Child of Rutgers Church," in this city, was the 
head-line of a letter in the Observer a few weeks ago. The 
writer, whose name was printed as Pennington, now writes 
again and says : 

" I wrote my name so carelessly that a very slight error 
would make the change. It should have been Remington, 
and I should have told you that my husband was the Rev. 
David Remington, of Rye, N. Y., whom you may remember." 

Remember him ? Indeed I do, with some sweetly solemn, 
and some amusing associations. He was the palest man I 
ever saw alive. Some failure in the circulation or nature of 
the blood (and I think that he died suddenly of an affection 
of the heart) had caused all the hue of health to fade away 
from his face, and the pallor, not of death, but of the absence 
of health, was upon him when I first met him. 



312 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

The circumstances were these : I went to a meeting of 
Presbytery to be examined and taken under its care as a stu- 
dent for the ministry. Another young man presented him- 
self at the same time. Our examination was referred to a 
committee of two members, Mr. R. was one, who retired 
with us to a private house, — it was in the country — and there 
heard from us a statement of our religious experience and 
views in seeking the ministry. I was first examined; and 
the other candidate being called on, gave the reason that had 
satisfied him of his duty to become a minister of the Word. 
It was mainly this : and as he was just from the farm, with 
no early education, it was given in very rude speech, but with 
great sincerity and freedom. He said that he had long been 
fond of fifing ; he fifed the first thing when he got up, and 
fifed at noon, when resting from work, and fifed until he 
went to bed : he would often go without his meals to have 
more time for fifing : but when he got religion he gave up 
fifing, and now he could go all day without fifing at all. 
This passion, subdued by religion, he dwelt on in a manner 
to me so absurd that with difficulty I remained becomingly 
sober. But the unruffled composure and solemn demeanor 
of Mr. Remington rebuked my "inwardness." As I never 
had such experience as my young friend, I could not com- 
prehend the apparent approval of it by Mr. Remington as 
genuine evidence of piety, and was ready to believe that I 
had made a mistake. We came out of the house to return to 
the Church. I walked along the country road by the side of 
Mr. R., and beginning very gently, so as not to get too deep 
into the matter if he were not in sympathy, I said, "Our 
young friend seems to have had a strong passion for fifing I" 
The pent-up humor of the dear good man burst into a merry 
explosion, very comforting to me : he left the road and took 
to the crooked rail fence, on which he leaned, while for a 
few minutes, he indulged in the free expression of the enjoy- 
ment which this singular but sincere experience had afforded. 
Recovering himself, we resumed our walk, while with rich, 
mellow and scriptural wisdom, he discoursed to me of the 
folly of mistaking innocent recreations for sinful pleasures. 



THE FIFE AND THE VIOLIN. 313 

The young man went back in less than a year to the farm, 
and I hope that he enjoyed his fife to the end of his days, 
which were not very long in the land. 

A few years afterward, I had the acquaintance of a Spanish 
gentleman of culture, who, to many other accomplishments, 
added that of being a master on the violin. He was a 
Romanist in his religion, but being attracted by curiosity, he 
attended a Protestant revival meeting, became deeply inter- 
ested and was soon converted. After a few weeks or months 
of great religious enjoyment, he became despondent and 
fearful that his new experience was delusive. In his despair 
he sought counsel of a judicious divine, to whom he related 
the honest attempts he had made to do his whole duty as a 
Christian, how he had denied himself those things in which 
he once took great delight, even his violin he had laid aside 
entirely, not having once had it in his hand since he had re- 
nounced the world, the flesh and the devil. 

The wise minister said to him : u Your idea of a religious 
life is derived from your old Roman Church, where, by mor- 
tifying even innocent desires, you hoped to atone for sin and 
make yourself holy. There is no sin in the enjoyment of 
your violin. There is no merit in laying it aside. As the 
man after God's own heart praised Him on an instrument 
of ten strings, so do you go away and play before Him on a 
fiddle with four. Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever 
you do, do all to the glory of God. Rejoice in the Lord 
always, and again I say rejoice." 

The soul of the new convert was comforted by these words. 
The veil was lifted from his heart. He resumed his favorite 
recreation. He grew in the knowledge and love of God. 
He walked before Him joyfully, a delightful Christian, 
useful and beloved in the church. 

You have recently asked me to tell you if this amusement, 
or that, or the other, is suitable for a young Christian. And 
you are surprised that I do not give you an answer. I can- 
not prescribe for you, without a divine prescription to me. 
And as you have access to the same rule of practice which I 
would consult, it is not needful that I should write more 



314 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

definitely. It is well to bear this in mind, that to be 
spiritually-minded is life. I would not play on a fife or a 
fiddle, if it made me less disposed to sing and pray and pant 
after the living God. I would not go to a ball, or a play, or 
a party where the amusements or the company, or the hours, 
or the surroundings dissipated my religious thoughts and 
filled me with the love of folly, frivolity, worldliness, and 
something worse than any of these. I would not go to any 
place out of the Week of Prayer, that I would be afraid to 
attend in the midst of it. Ditto of Lent. The innocent 
amusements of life are favorable to true Christian culture 
and growth in the divine life. Whatever hinders religious 
progress is of the devil, and is to be shunned as the plague. 

It is on this principle that the true Church sets its face 
against those entertainments which corrupt the tastes, 
deprave and pervert the passions, excite impure imaginations 
and desires, and are wholly incompatible with holy living. 
The nearer the Church comes to conformity with the world, 
the more popular of course she becomes, and the less is the 
spiritual power she exerts upon the world. 

Use the world as not abusing it. Religion heightens every 
lawful pleasure, and destroys the taste for any other. A 
merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Music hath 
charms. And my young friend made a mistake when he 
ceased to fife ; as the Spanish gentleman did also, when he 
sacrificed his violin. With such sacrifice God is not pleased. 



MY FIRST SIGHT OF NIAGARA. 

It was just before sunset, of a rainy day. In the west, 
huge masses of cloud were piled like mountains, and the 
sinking sun bursting from among them, covered them with 
lustrous glory, such as the full hand of God only can fling on 
the canvas of the sky. 

" O, look at the sky," said one of our party, as we emerged 
from the woods and approached the verge of the precipice. 



MY FIRST SIGHT OF NIAGARA. 315 

" O, look at the Falls," said I, and there they stood, that 
western sky with its chariots of fire, its glowing sun, its 
hanging thunder clouds, reflected on the descending torrent 
sheet, which looked like many mighty pillars, of colors vari- 
ous as the rainbow shows, each pillar perfect in its shape 
and hue, and ranged in order, a fitting front for heaven! 
Sure never out of heaven was such a sight ; and never until 
I see the " rainbow round about the throne," will these eyes 
look upon the like again. All that my soul ever thirsted after 
of magnificence and loveliness blended in rarest harmony, was 
so far transcended in that scene of majesty beauty, that I 
could have wept in silence, and returned home satisfied, had 
that been my last, as it was my first sight of the Falls of 
Niagara. 

So sensible were we that the vision just now floating 
before us, was what no pen had ever attempted to portray, 
and so absorbed had each of us been in its wondrous charms, 
that we cautiously gave utterance to our emotions, till we 
found that it was no enchantment, but a scene that each eye 
had seen, and on each soul had been engraved, to be remem- 
bered among the brightest and fairest of earth's pictures of 
loveliness and glory. 

But " glory built on tears" soon perishes. The sun went 
down behind the heavy clouds, wrapping his golden drapery 
around him ; the gorgeous tints, that gave such magic beauty 
to the waters, faded ; and we were standing in breathless 
stillness fixed, contemplating the solemn grandeur of this 
great psalm of nature. Now the sober feeling of a felt real- 
ity began to creep slowly over me, and as we moved from 
point to point to observe the varied features of the view, the 
shades of evening were around us, and a starless night and 
no guide soon convinced us that we were lost in the woods 
of the island, on each side of which the river leaps into the 
terrible abyss. Taking the island shore as our only guide, 
we travelled around, and finally reached the bridge over 
which we had to cross to our lodgings. 

We had seen the Falls ; and well wearied with our walk 
and well paid for our toil, we thanked God for bringing us 



316 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

safely here, for revealing so much of Himself to us in his 
mighty works, and begging that we might ever love and 
adore Him more for what we had just now seen, we lay down 
in His arms, and were lulled to sleep by the cataract's never- 
ceasing roar. 

Refreshed by rest, we rose the next morning, and to our 
joy the sun was rising in unclouded glory. It was but a few 
minutes before I was again in the midst of the scene ; but 
now, how changed. It was new, almost as if I had seen 
nothing of it before. The bright light of heaven streaming 
across the brow of the Falls, twining its front with rainbows, 
and strewing it with diamonds that flashed continually be- 
fore me, gave new beauty to the view. Still, the deep feel- 
ing of sublimity and awe had not yet possessed me, nor did 
it, till, a few hours after, we were rowed out into the stream 
below the cataract, and there, in view of every descending 
drop of that vast torrent, we looked up silent and solemn, 
feeling (as we had never felt before) our own littleness in 
the presence of the omnipotent and everlasting God ! 

This was the scene that I had brought in my soul with me. 
It had been there for years, and whenever I had thought of 
the Falls of Niagara, it was from this shell of a boat tottling 
among the foam and breakers at the base. It is enough, 
said I to my swelling heart ; O what a God Thou art, from 
the hollow of whose hand, these mighty torrents flow. 
These are Thy works ; Thine eye hath counted every drop 
that ever fell from those heights, and Thine ear hath listened 
to the music of these Falls since they began their solemn 
hymn. It is a fitting sight for Thine eye, and this roar 
might well be the organ-bass to the song of the morning 
stars. 

To others it may ; but to one who with devout heart has 
ever knelt while in the midst of the stream and looked up 
into the broad face of these torrents, it will not be strange 
that the mind should rise with these clouds of spray, like 
incense, to the throne of God : and that thoughts of worship 
and praise should possess the whole soul. In this spirit it 
was, that Coleridge's Hymn before sunrise in the Vale of 



MY FIRST SIGHT OF NIAGARA, 317 

Chamouni came to me, and I thought how more sublimely 
beautiful and eloquent the scene before him would have 
been, had he in the sunlight looked on these live torrents, 
leaping and dashing amid clouds and rainbows and thun- 
ders ; and breaking around him as if mad in their mighty 
overthrow and fatal plunge. He looked up toward Mont 
Blanc, where the torrents had frozen as they flowed " from 
dark and icy caverns," 

" Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, 
Forever shattered and the same forever," 

and as his soul was filled with the majestic grandeur even of 
that scene, he cries — 

" Who gave you your invulnerable life, 
Your strength, your speed, your fury and your joy, 
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? 
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven, 
Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 
Clothe you with rainbows ? Who with living flowers 
Of loveliest hue, spread garlands at your feet ? 
God ! Let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
Answer ! And let the ice plains echo God !" 

So did the praise of God go up from these torrents, and it 
was good to let the heart flow with the rushing currents, 
and, borne along by its own impulses, be swallowed up in the 
boundless ocean of infinity. Looking up again from the 
cataract to Him whose presence I felt and whose voice I 
heard, I could say to Him — 

" Yes ! as a drop of water in the sea, 

All this magnificence in thee is lost ; 
What are ten thousand worlds compared to thee? 

And what am I, then? Heaven's unnumber'd host, 
Though multiplied by myriads, and arrayed 

In all the glory of sublimest thought, 
Is but an atom in the balance weighed 

Against thy greatness — is a cipher brought 

Against infinity! What am I then ? Naught !" 



318 I RE N^, US LETTERS. 

It is no part of my object in this sketch to give a descrip- 
tion of the Falls of Niagara. This is to be had for a shilling 
anywhere ; but it may be well enough to say that the first 
views I obtained were of the American Fall from Iris (form- 
erly called, Goat) Island. And now we pass over in the boat 
to the Canada side, where the view is more complete than is 
to be obtained elsewhere except by those who prefer with me 
to play in the boiling gulph below, and look up. The over- 
powering was more real, as I floated beneath the cataract than 
from any other point of observation, and I think I left few 
of them untried. But the view from Table Rock leaves 
nothing to be desired. There the panorama is entire. The 
circuit of the Horse Shoe, the central, like a white ribbon 
streaming in the air, the stately American, less picturesque 
but more graceful than any other, all pour before you, and 
words were never made by which to tell the power of this 
majestic scene. Talk of disappointment with the Falls! 
The man must have had a fancy wilder than the winds that 
roar under this cataract, who ever pictured to himself mag- 
nificence in nature more grand and beautiful than now lives 
and leaps before him, like a new world springing from its 
Maker, and rolling in the liquid light and gladness of a new 
existence. " Is it not strange," said one of our party to me, 
" that you could have lived in this world so many years, and 
never have seen this before?" I made no reply, but felt 
rebuked, I did not know, however, that there was such a 
world, or I would have come from the ends of the earth to 
gaze upon it. 

Now stretch yourself out on the flat rock that projects over 
the abyss, and close by the side of the rushing waters, look 
over the brink. The sun lights the small globes of water, 
myriads of which separate like so many jewels poured from 
celestial caskets, and you follow them coursing each other, 
down, down, down, until they and you are lost in the foam- 
ing gulph. You are now, if the wind is fair, behind the 
spray ; and the sense of height and depth is appalling. Yet 
the longer you look, the more infatuated you are with the 
scene, and the less disposed to draw back from the precipice. 



My first sight of Niagara. 3*9 

(It is ever thus !) Timid ladies, who screamed with terror 
when I crept to the edge, and prayed me to come back, were 
soon cautiously approaching, now side by side with me look- 
ing over, and now so fearless that it took a strong arm and a 
stern voice to break them away from the awful edge. A 
single flaw in the rock, from which many a portion has been 
rent in years past, a single flaw in that rock, and * 

There are other points from which to view the Falls, and 
there are other features on which I would dwell, had I not 
been sensible ever since I began this letter, that every attempt 
to transfer my own impressions to the paper, has lamentably 
failed. Often while wandering from cliff to cliff, some new 
feature of peculiar beauty or grandeur would break upon me 
and fix my eye, and sitting down on a stone, with pencil in 
hand, I would try to find words to fasten the sensation in 
my note-book, with certainly a benevolent desire, that others 
less favoYed, might hear of what appeared to me so lovely or 
so great. Thus, while we were on Prospect Tower, two lit- 
tle birds flew fearlessly into the spray in front of the fall, and 
sporting in the watery vapor were lost from the sight ; and I 
tried to get upon paper the thought that was suggested 
of the soul that fearlessly and confidingly wings its way into 
the dread abyss of eternity, and when the elements melt and 
the wild roar of a wrecked world fills the universe with fear, 
stretches its flight right onward into the bosom of God. 

A day was thus spent ; then the Sabbath came ; and we 
worshipped in the great temple not made with hands. Its 
light was the sun, its music the majestic water-fall, its in- 
cense the gratitude and joy of subdued hearts, its eloquence 
a "thousand voices," "the noise of many waters," praising 
God. This was the morning service offered with the rising 
sun, while a rainbow, a perfect arch, the most lustrous we had 
seen, was resting upon the deep — an emblem of God's prom- 
ise and our hope. 

In the evening, we selected a retired spot, in full view of 
the Horse Shoe Fall, and spent a peaceful hour in singing 



* It fell a few years afterwards. 



320 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

hyms of praise ; sweet to hear, though we were so near to the 
waters that our party were obliged to cluster closely, or we 
were beyond the reach of each other's voices. How full of 
beauty was the " Star of Bethlehem/' with the chorus of this 
roaring fall — 

u Once on a raging sea I rode, 

The storm was loud, the night was dark, 
The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed 
The winds that tossed my foundering bark." 

And then the soul responded, with joyful emotions, to that 
other hymn, 

" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, 
Stand dressed in living green," etc. 

Another day was spent in revisiting points which we had 
learned to love, and in discovering new features of interest in 
scenes with which we had supposed ourselves familiar. We 
could not be satisfied, and the thought of leaving was pain- 
ful. It was good to be here. The presence of God we felt, 
his power we saw, his glory shone around us ever, and we 
thought it well to linger in the midst of such emotions, and 
let them work deeply and indelibly into the soul. I trust 
they did. Certainly we have conceptions of sublimity and 
beauty, the handiwork of the Almighty, his floods, his pen- 
cilings, his voice and his fear, such as we never could have 
had without coming to Niagara. But we must go down from 
these heights and enter our own world again, and having 
once more with reverence and awe looked up at the Cataract 
from the river below, that the last impression might be that 
which we had felt to be the strongest, and having cooled my 
head, for by this time it needed cooling, in the boiling waters 
beneath the falls — we went away. 

Such was my first, but not my last visit to the Falls of 
Niagara 



THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NOTCH. 3 21 

THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NOTCH. 

A DISASTER IN 1826. 

From the sea-coast of Maine to the heart of the White 
Hills, through the Notch, was a ride of three hours only. 
And such a ride ! The skill of the engineers and the daring 
of the projectors of the railroad have been greatly exagger- 
ated, but it is one of the most remarkable and interesting 
routes and roads in the world. No line of railway in Switzer- 
land, and no enterprise in the Alleghany Mountains, afford 
so grand and picturesque and peculiar views as this. Imagine 
the outline of a mighty basin, two or three miles across, and 
a road winding along the side of it, half way from the bottom 
to the top. Above and around the ledge, or terrace, or cor- 
nice, on which the iron way is made, rise mountains on 
mountains, the names of which are familiar in American 
biography. Far below, these hills stretch down into a valley, 
through which the old carriage-road still takes its neglected 
way. More than thirty-five years ago I rode through it, and 
visited the Willey House, the scene in 1826 of a fearful disas- 
ter, familiar now in history. At that time the Crawfords 
were the famous landlords of the mountains. 

Many accounts of the destruction of the Willey family have 
been published, defective in many particulars, and erroneous 
in others. I learned that Ethan Allen Crawford had a written 
journal of his life and times among these hills, with the most 
authentic and minute particulars respecting this event that 
has been heard with intense emotion in all parts of the world. 
I applied to Mr. Crawford for the manuscript, which he was 
kind enough to lend me. It abounds in romantic incidents by 
field and flood, and descriptions of remarkable occurrences, 
such as a life of fifty years in such a region of country could 
not fail to furnish in rich abundance. His wife is the histo- 
rian, and the delicate touches of her pen, though an untaught 
pen, discover a heart alive to the wild grandeur of rugged 
nature around her, and a nice appreciation of the beautiful 



322 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

and true in the world of feeling ; which must have been terri- 
bly invaded when death, in such an awful car, came down 
upon her neighbors in the Notch. From this narrative, 
written at the time, and from free conversation with the peo- 
ple of that region, I derived the facts which I am about to 
relate. 

The passage through the White Mountains, called the 
Notch, is about four miles in length, and near the middle 
there is a spot where the sides of the mountains do not 
approach so near each other as in the rest of the gorge, but 
leave a level surface of a few acres, on which the family of 
Mr. Calvin Willey had settled. The house rested on the foot 
of one mountain, and in front of it, at the foot of the other, 
the Saco wound its way. A solitary spot this was, and it 
seems a wonder that human beings should find an object 
worth the sacrifice of living in such a lonesome place. The 
family consisted of Mr. Willey and his wife, a woman of more 
refinement than would be looked for in this mountain home, 
five children, the eldest a daughter of about thirteen, and 
two hired men. 

In the month of July, 1826, there had been a heavy fall of 
rain, which had caused a partial slide of the surface of the 
mountain, and had alarmed this family so that they felt the 
necessity of making some provision against sudden destruc- 
tion. The sides of the hills are marked with deep furrows 
down which the ploughshare of Almighty ruin has been 
driven, when the storm has come so fearfully upon the sum- 
mits as to loosen the soil from the granite base ; and then 
vast masses of earth, with trees the growth of centuries, and 
huge rocks, in one awful river of devastation, rush headlong 
into the gulfs below. Such occurrences, though not com- 
mon, are liable to take place at any time ; and no emblems of 
death and destruction are equal to the scene that must en- 
sue, if the human race are in the way of this solid cataract. 

The Willey family had been forwarned by a slight slide in 
the vicinity, and supposing from the make of the mountain, 
which rises very suddenly, immediately behind the house, 
that they were peculiarly exposed in that situation, they pre 



THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NOTCH. 323 

pared a shanty about one hundred rods south of their dwell- 
ing, to which they might retreat when they should perceive 
signs of coming danger. 

Near the close of the month of August, the rain came down 
in torrents, so as to fill the inhabitants of the plains above 
the Willey house with apprehensions. At this juncture, 
there were no visitors at any of the taverns, and consequently 
little passing from one part of the mountains to the other. 
Toward night, a solitary foot traveller was wending his way 
from the Crawfords' down through the Notch, the storm 
having subsided. He found great difficulty in working his 
passage, so fearfully had the road been broken up by the tor- 
rents ; but, thinking he should be able to reach Willey s be- 
fore dark, he pushed on. He succeeded in getting there 
shortly after nightfall, and was surprised to see no light in 
the window. A little dog stood in the open door, and re- 
sisted his entrance, but after some persuasion was pacified ; 
when our traveller entered, and soon discovered evidence 
that the family had fled from their beds in haste, and that 
he was now the sole tenant of a deserted house. It was too 
late for him to seek the family; and, naturally concluding 
that they had been alarmed by the storm, of whose frightful 
fury he had already seen terrible effects, and had gone down 
to the settlement at the southern extremity of the Notch, he 
quietly possessed himself of a vacant bed, and slept till 
morning. 

What a scene presented itself to the eye of this lone tra- 
veller, when he rose the next day ! Thousands of acres of 
the mountain side, loosed from the moorings that for ages 
had defied the storm, had come down in one fell avalanche, 
and lay in wild confusion, like a world's wreck, at his feet. 
The stream had been driven from its wonted channel, no signs 
of a road were left to mark his way, but the bare mountains 
on each side were his guide, and he went on over the broken 
masses that were piled before him, expecting to find the 
Willey family at the house at the lower end of the Notch. 
Arriving there, he was alarmed, and so were the people of 
the neighborhood, when it was known that the Willey family 



324 2REN&US LETTERS. 

had fled from their house, but had not been heard of below. 
The truth burst on the mind in an instant, that the deluge of 
earth and stone had destroyed them all ! The alarm was 
spread among the few inhabitants of that region, and they 
set out without delay to learn the fate of their friends. On 
reaching the spot where the catastrophe occurred, they sought 
a long time without finding the least evidence that any of 
them had perished, until at length the arm of one of the 
children was seen protruding through a mass of earth, and the 
dead body was speedily disinterred. Quite at a distance from 
this spot, another of the children was found on the surface 
without a wound, having evidently been swept away by the 
waters and drowned. The sad search was continued, and one 
after another of the lifeless bodies was dug out, until all but 
three were found ; the mother and one of the daughters side 
by side in death, and the rest some in one place and some in 
another, where they were caught and crushed by the descend- 
ing current, or dashed along on its resistless wave. Three of 
them were never found. They sleep in their mountain grave ; 
the wild winds sweep over their unmarked sepulchres, and 
the stranger walks upon the earth that covers them, ten, 
twenty, it may be, fifty feet below the surface. 

This brief recital of facts will enable the reader to draw 
his own picture of the scene of wild dismay that wrapt itself 
around this household in their last night of life. There is no 
doubt that they were roused by the sound of the descending 
torrents, and thinking the shanty which they had constructed 
the safest place, they fled thither; and there, a miserable 
group, they huddled in darkness and terror, surrounded with 
more circumstances of horror than a wild fancy could well 
conjure, an awful storm of rain, a swollen river roaring before 
them, and then the awful cataract of rocks and trees and 
earth, a more terrible engine of wrath and woe than the icy 
avalanche of the Alps, comes pouring down upon them. 

I climbed up the side of the mountain to trace the course 
of this slide. It commenced, as the unhappy victims had 
supposed it would, immediately above their little dwelling, 
and just before it reached the house a firm rock parted the 



THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NOTCH. 325 

avalanche, as may be represented by an inverted ^, one branch 
of the stream passing to the north of the house and crushing 
the stable with its dumb tenants, and the other, being the 
great mass of the slide, pouring to the south, where the fugi- 
tives vainly sought their safety. Had they abode in the 
house, not a hair of their heads would have been hurt. The 
building was untouched. It was an ark to which they should 
have clung, but which they deserted to perish. The house 
still stands, though unfortunately for the melancholy associa- 
tions that one loves to cherish with such a spot, it has been 
rebuilt, and is now kept as a small tavern. The family, whom 
I found there, had but lately moved in, and the good woman 
told me it was " dreadful lonesome," but she thought she 
"could stand it." So could I, if there were no other houses 
in the world to be let. 

Three of those victims have slept undisturbed fifty-four 
years. But for the art of printing, their burial would by this 
time have become a vague tradition, and in a century or two 
more would be forgotten. Then if the railroad had been run 
on the line of the Saco river, instead of going up the side of 
the basin, and the remains of this household and a few 
kitchen utensils had been found in excavating the earth, over 
which huge trees had grown, we should have been informed 
by learned paleontologists that pre-historic man had been 
found in the bottom of the White Mountain Pass, and the 
evidence by his side that he was a worker in metals, proba- 
bly a contemporary of Tubal Cain. The printing-press has 
changed all that. Facts, with their dates, now go on imper- 
ishable records, and theorists have to go behind printed 
pages to stultify the age we live in. 

When I was here in 1844 we travelled by stage, at the foot 
of these mountains. Now I am half way up, and whirling 
along the side, and looking down upon a vast waving sea of 
green : many shades of green : making an exquisite picture, 
and in the autumn, when the various colors come out as the 
leaves prepare to die, the view is said to be brilliant and gor- 
geous beyond desciption. 

Observation cars are provided — platforms with no sides to 



326 IRE 'NM US LETTERS. 

obstruct the sight, and on these the passengers sit who choose 
to take the prospect through whirling smoke and cinders, 
supposing it to be more enjoyable than to sit inside. But, 
anyway, in or out, the pass is grand, and has to be made 
before its remarkable beauty and sublimity can be under- 
stood. 



THE MAN WHO HAD TO WAIT FOR A SEAT IN 
CHURCH. 

He writes a grumble to one of the daily newspapers. He 
says that he went to one of the large uptown, Fifth avenue 
churches, got there half an hour before the time for service 
to begin, had to stand by the door and wait, and wait, until 
the people assembled, and the pewholders were in, and then 
he was conducted to a vacant seat. He had to stand up so 
long that he became impatient and cross, and now complains 
of the practice which is not peculiar to the church he visited, 
but is the same in all churches that are not free. And he is 
not a stranger in the city, but had, this Sabbath morning, 
wandered away from the neighborhood of many churches, to 
hear a celebrated preacher. 

Such complaints are rarely made by strangers. A person 
from a hotel in the city, going to a popular church, expects 
to depend on the hospitality of the people whose church he 
visits, and he is thankful when, at the proper time, he is con- 
ducted to a seat. There is no want of hospitality in any of 
our churches. In many of them the young gentlemen or- 
ganize themselves into a corps of ushers, and take their posi- 
tions in the several aisles, to show strangers to seats with the 
least possible delay. They perform this gratuitous and 
thankless service as a religious work, to promote the good of 
the church and of strangers. In other churches the trustees 
themselves, venerable men, assist in this office. But why is 
it necessary ? The few strangers in town, scattered among 
the several churches, would not require extra aid to find 



WAITING FOR A SEAT IN CHURCH. 327 

seats. The doorkeeper of the house could easily attend to 
their wants. But the trouble comes of the habit that thou- 
sands of people have, of going about to hear preaching with 
no settled place of worship. Nine-tenths of all the people 
standing at the door, waiting to be shown into pews, are resi- 
dents of the city, and ought to have pews of their own. This 
grumbler, whose complaint has led to these remarks, ought 
to have been in his own pew in the church where his residence 
or his views made it convenient and profitable for him to 
attend. But he is one of thousands in this city who sponge 
on other people for the " means of grace." This is the way 
it works. 

We have tried various ways and means of " supporting the 
gospel " as it is called. Free churches, open to all comers, 
first come first served, have been tried, and some, on the same 
plan, are in operation now. That is one way. The plan 
has been a failure. Even the Roman Catholic churches, 
which are supposed to be practically free, exact a rent from 
the poorest working girls. The Methodists have pewed 
churches, whereas they formerly repudiated the system. In 
our Protestant churches the plan is to rent sittings, and from 
these rents to pay the necessary expenses of the church. 
And if a family or individual wishes to have a seat in any 
one of them, and is unable to pay for it, the applicant will 
be furnished with a good pew, free, or on such terms as 
he prefers. This is the constant practice in all our Protes- 
tant congregations No one, outside of those in charge, 
knows whether you are paying $150 a year for your pew, or 
only $1.50, or nothing. No family in this city lives so far 
from church, or is so poor, as not to be able to have a good 
seat in a Christian church. Thus the gospel is offered with- 
out money to all who wish to hear. And going out into the 
highways, are visitors seeking those who neglect the sanc- 
tuary, and persuading them to come in, so that no one per- 
ishes, or lives, in want of an offer of the gospel. 

That is the plan for supporting the church in such a city as 
this. But we will now suppose that " the man who had to 
wait for a seat " was to have his way : his idea seems to be 



328 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

that, as soon as he arrives at the door of any church in town, 
he may walk in, select such seat as best pleases him, plant 
himself in it, and " enjoy the gospel." If he has that right, 
others have it, and the church is at once given up to squat- 
ters. Who will "hire" a pew if it is thus to be at the mercy 
of such interlopers as these who go from place to place to hear 
something new. The plan of sustaining the church by pew 
rents would break down in a year, if it were practically un- 
derstood that no pewholder can have his own when he 
wants it. 

There is no church in this, or any other American city, 
where a stranger would not be instantly invited to a vacant seat 
in any pew so soon as his presence was discovered. In Lon- 
don I have stood in the aisle, through the whole service, at the 
door of a pew in which there was room for two or three more 
persons, but the occupants would not invite me in, because I 
was a stranger. Etiquette probably forbade the courtesy. 
The French are said to be even more particular : at least, I 
have read of a Frenchman who would not give his hand to a 
drowning man because he had not been introduced to him. 
Our pews are reserved until the regular attendants are in 
them. Then the ushers fill up the vacant sittings with the 
waiting strangers. If a better plan can be devised, let us 
have it. Perhaps a convention of those who get their preach- 
ing for nothing every Sabbath, might be held, and a standing 
committee appointed to suggest a plan to obtain their rights. 

I can imagine them in session, being called together by my 
grumbler, at the close of a service which they have attended 
in other people's pews. The grumbler would take the chair 
and open the meeting with prayer, thanking God that they 
are not as other people, and especially as those who build 
churches, pay for them, and worship in them : and praying that 
the time may soon come when churches will grow -on the 
street corners and ministers will be fed with manna from 
heaven, and men may have the means of grace without its 
costing them a cent. Then he would draw from his pocket a 
series of resolutions which, being read, would be unanimously 
adopted ; to this effect ; 



THE GAMBLERS AT MONACO. 329 

Resolved, That it is unbecoming a Christian people to sit in their own 
pews while we want the use of them. 

Resolved, That the people who pay for the church and its support ought 
to be satisfied with having had the privilege, and now it is no more than 
fair that they should stand at the door and wait till we have taken their pews : 
then, if there are any left, they can come in and be seated. 

Resolved, That these resolutions be published in the New York Observer ; 
provided the editors will pay us for the privilege. 

These resolutions express the views of that large class of 
church-goers who have no pews of their own for which they 
honestly pay. Instead of grumbling because they have to 
wait for a seat, they should take a pew, or part of one, in a 
church convenient to their residence: identify themselves 
with the congregation : go to work as Christian people : and 
then only will they get the good of the gospel. 



THE GAMBLERS AT MONACO. 

From a sound sleep last night I was awakened by a sudden, 
strangely startling noise. I thought something had fallen in 
the room ; I struck a light, and finding everything in its place, 
went to the front window, opened the shutter, and looked 
out upon the street. All was silence and darkness. But in 
the morning (it was now a quarter past one) the body of a 
man was found upon the sidewalk. He had shot himself 
through the heart. It made me sad to think that I had 
heard, and perhaps was the only one who did hear, the sound 
of that death-shot. The man had come back to Nice from 
Monaco, ruined by gambling, and, in madness and despair, 
had made one leap from the hells of Monaco to another from 
which there is no escape. 

"It's nothing strange," said my friend who explained the 
suicide ; " they often kill themselves, these gamblers ; and we 
have the same, or worse, tragedies every year. You noticed 
the sudden death of a young man last week : the papers said 



33° IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

he committed suicide, but the facts were carefully concealed. 
A mere boy, he got in the way of gambling, till his fresh 
youth was blighted, and he murdered himself before he was 
1 8 years of age. 

" Two years ago a young married couple came here ; they 
had apartments close by me : the wife had the money, and 
the man could spend only what she let him have : when she 
found that he was frequenting the tables at Monaco, she 
refused to give him more : he was already in debt, and in his 
desperation he killed her and then himself. The tragedy 
was hushed up as well as it could be, but it was one of many 
in the history of the infernal regions next door." 

This vortex of ruin has had a depressing influence upon 
Nice, as a winter resort. Thousands and tens of thousands 
come and enjoy the season ; the numerous and spacious 
hotels are crowded : and new ones are every year added to 
the number : but it is said that the growth of the city has 
been checked, and hundreds of families that formerly made 
this their home in the winter now seek other climes where 
such temptations are not presented. 

A standing notice in the daily papers says that no inhabit- 
ants of Nice are permitted to enter the " saloons of play" at 
Monaco unless they are members of a Club ! This curious 
provision is very French. There are several fashionable 
clubs in Nice, answering to those in London and New York, 
and here, as there, it is understood that no gambling is 
allowed. But it is equally well understood that the members 
may gamble at their own sweet wills. And we have had our 
own amusement lately, reading in the papers the incidents at 
the clubs in New York, illustrating beautifully what the 
world means by a gentleman and man of honor. " The Hea- 
then Chinee" has his pupils and friends in the highest circles 
of club life at home and abroad. The members of clubs at 
Nice are free to enter the "salles de jeu" of Monaco, where 
there is no play but for money, and where the company 
that run the machine make incredible sums out of the dupes 
that are drawn into their saloons. So the fly walks into 
the spider's parlor, and has his life-blood sucked out of 



THE GAMBLERS AT MONACO, 331 

him. This rule of exclusion is merely a pretence : cards of 
admission can be obtained by any and every body who has 
money to lose, and the nuisance is just as great now as it ever 
was. 

A few years ago these gambling tables were set up in 
public at most of the great German and French watering- 
places. Homburg and Baden Baden were the chief cities of 
play. Public opinion has put them down, though they were 
the source of much gain to the governments that licensed 
them. Gambling is not now considered respectable except 
by the members of our fashionable clubs. This establish- 
ment at Monaco is about the last that is left. I believe one 
is still licensed in an obscure Canton in Switzerland. And 
if you ask why it flourishes here in the midst of civilization 
and Christianity, I will tell you. 

Monaco is a kingdom, the smallest and most contemptible 
in the world. It is also one of the oldest, and perhaps the 
very oldest, in Europe. It dates from the tenth century. On 
the coast of the Mediterranean sea, at the foot of the Mari- 
time Alps, three or four fishing and trading villages managed, 
with infinite and foolish sacrifices, to make themselves into 
a separate State, over which the Grimaldi family has held 
precarious sway for a thousand years. In the chances and 
changes that have modified the map of Europe, (in which 
Nice has been at one time in France, and then in Italy, and 
now in France again,) the insignificance of Monaco has been 
its shield. Two of the towns that once belonged to it have 
managed to get out, and Monaco now stands alone in its 
glory, the least and the meanest of kingdoms. Its entire 
population is less than 10,000. It consists of a small town on 
a remarkable promontory, inaccessible from the seaside, but 
making a snug harbor which separates the town from Monte 
Carlo. On this hill a splendid hotel is built, and beautiful 
villas are springing up. The Prince of this petty domain 
has a royal palace with splendid gardens around it : he has 
his castle, and guns and soldiers, and is the equal in position 
with any of the crowned heads of Europe. To keep up this 
style and state, he must have money : the taxes that his sub- 



33 2 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

jects had to pay were so heavy as to lead to the revolt and 
secession of Mentone and Rocca Brum There was every 
reason to fear the Monacans would follow the lead of their 
neighbors, and that some fine morning they might pitch the 
Prince into the sea so invitingly near. In this crisis the 
famous man Blanc, who was harvesting the gold of all the 
fools at Homburg and Baden, obtained a license to set up his 
tables at Monaco for the accommodation of the silly sheep 
that would come to Nice, and Mentone and Monaco, to be 
fleeced in winter. Mr. Blanc and his partners agreed, in con- 
sideration of their license, to pay the Prince an annual sum 
of $75,000, and also to keep his city lighted with gas, streets 
in order, drainage perfect, and to make the place more and 
more attractive for the fashionable world. The climate is 
delightful, the King lives in Paris the most of the time, and 
a reign of peace and plenty is enjoyed under the general 
auspices of a nest of gamblers who make vast sums of money 
out of their contract with the King. I am told that their 
expenditures in city improvements and taxes amount to a 
thousand dollars a day ; and this will help you to some idea 
of the money that must be lost by the visitors. There are 
five or six large tables, with as many games of various kinds, 
at which an indefinite number of people may play, and these 
games go on steadily, day and night, and the stream flowing, 
almost without a turn, into the bank, or the bag, of the com- 
pany. Women and men, young and old, English and Ameri- 
can, French, Italians, Germans and Russians, Orientals swar- 
thy and passionless in their looks, all play, all lose, all play 
again, for it is the nature of this vice {of all vices) that indul- 
gence stimulates the passion, blunts the edge of reason, like 
the horse-leech cries " more, more," and never says it is 
enough. 

Under the guise of Christian charity, many churches in 
America, and many benevolent organizations, in the spirit of 
this Monaco company, set up lotteries and raffles to tempt 
the people to risk a little money in the hope of getting more. 
So this Monaco company give large donations to religious 
and charitable objects, hoping thereby to take the curse from 



MADE WITHOUT A MAKER. ZZl 

their business and conciliate public favor. The principle of 
their accursed trade, covered with blood and loaded with the 
misery of ruined families and the souls of its victims blighted 
in this world, damned in that to come, is just the same as 
that by which money is won at a church fair. 



MADE WITHOUT A MAKER. 

Opening an encyclopedia, in pursuit of knowledge, my 
attention was drawn to the word protoplasm. I read its defi- 
nition, and then a long and weary essay on the subject. 
Perhaps you will say the same of this letter. It may be 
weary, it shall not be very long. 

The book said that protoplasm comes from two Greek 
words mtdinmg first and form, a term applied to the supposed 
original substance from which all living beings are devel- 
oped, and which is the universal concomitant of every phe- 
nomenon of life. All that is comprehended for brevity under 
the term life, " the growth of plants, the flight of birds, or a 
train of thought :" that is to say, vegetable life, brute life, 
and human life, " is thus supposed to be caused by corporeal 
organs which either themselves consist of protoplasm, or 
have been developed out of it." The first living things are 
called moners, which are made out of pure protoplasm: that 
and nothing more. You must put a pin there. Not to prick 
the moner, but to mark the place in the process of getting 
something out of nothing. Who made the protoplasm is not 
" supposed." It is supposed that moners are made of proto- 
plasm. When the colored preacher in Alabama spoke of the 
first man being made of wet clay and set up against the fence 
to dry, one of his doubting hearers asked out loud, " Who 
made the fence?" The preacher bade him be silent, for 
" such questions would upset any system of theology." 

The author proceeds : moners are " the simplest living 
beings we can conceive of as capable of existing," and " they 



334 IRE N A? US LETTERS, 

perform all the functions which in their entirety constitute, 
in the most highly organized animals and plants, what is 
comprehended in the idea of life/' You see it is becoming 
interesting. In the simplest conceivable being, all the func- 
tions of the most fully developed man are found. You 
thought that it required infinite power and wisdom to make 
a being in whom resides a soul of boundless reach : but now 
you are told that in a moner — don't forget what a moner is 
— the most highly organized system of animal life and func- 
tions exists. Some of these wonderful fellows, the moners, 
live "in fresh water," " others in the sea." As a general rule 
" they are invisible to the naked eye," but " some are as large 
as the head of a pin." Put another pin here so as to see its 
head. Some " are smooth :" others have " numerous delicate 
threads radiating in all directions." Sixteen varieties of 
these curious first things are catalogued. Haeckel has done 
it. He has also shown that although moners are the "sim- 
plest living beings we can conceive of as capable of existing" 
and " consist solely of protoplasm," yet protoplasm is not a 
"simple" substance, but consists of carbon 50 to 55 per cent, 
hydrogen 6 to 8, nitrogen 15 to 17, oxygen 20 to 22, and only 
1 to 2 of sulphur. Thus it is proved that the simplest of all 
conceivable beings is composed of a compound including five 
other substances. You might put another pin there, for it 
becomes more curiously entertaining as we proceed. We have 
now seen that the origin of life was, first, pure protoplasm, 
secondly, moners are made of it solely, and themselves per- 
fectly simple : and now protoplasm made of five totally dis- 
similar constituents rolled into one. 

According to the plastid theory the great variety of vital 
phenomena is the consequence of the infinitely delicate 
chemical difference in the composition of protoplasm, and it 
considers protoplasm to be the sole active life substance. 
The author goes on to say that the protoplasm theory 
received a wide and thorough illustration from the study of 
rhizopods which Ernst Haeckel published in 1862, and its 
complete application in a subsequent work "by the same na- 
turalist." " Haeckel," our author says, discovered the "sim- 



MADE WITHOUT A MAKER. 335 

plest" of organisms in 1864, and Haeckel elaborated "the 
extremest philosophical consequences of the protoplasm the- 
ory." And our author having, quoted Haeckel seven times, 
closes his essay by referring, among other authors, to five 
several and distinct works by Haeckel. Being by this time 
in the spirit of inquiry into the origin of things, I sought 
the authorship of our author's treatise, and, in a list of 
authors in the beginning of the book, it was assigned to 
Haeckel ! 

How like it is to the thing it treats ! Here is protoplasm 
illustrated. Whenever our author would illustrate any point 
of importance, he tells us what Haeckel says : and he and 
Haeckel are one and the same ; just as protoplasm begets 
moners which are solely protoplasm, and the simplest con- 
ceivable beings, yet solely composed of one substance itself 
made up of five. And this is philosophy ! 

A speaker in Congress began by saying grandiloquently : 
"The generality of mankind in general are disposed to 
oppress the generality of mankind in general." "You had 
better stop," said one near to him, " you are coming out at the 
same hole you went in at." The philosophers of the Haeckel 
and Huxley school argue in a circle with the same result. 
Dr. Lundy tells us of a Hindoo picture of a god with his 
great toe in his mouth, thus having no beginning or end : and 
the Doctor says that " the toe in his mouth represents his 
incomprehensible spiritual nature." The circle out of which 
is evolved the plastid theory of life has the same incompre- 
hensibility that represents its idea of self-existence by an old 
man kissing his big toe. 

But is there no point, no moral, no great truth to be devel- 
oped out of this mass of contradiction and absurdity ? What 
is the necessary deduction from the moner theory of life ? 
Logically and intentionally the inference is that, in the 
human being, there is no life that has not the same origin 
and substance and function with that of vegetables and 
beasts. These teachers teach that " a train of thought" " is 
composed of corporeal organs" and comes of protoplasm. 
Thus man and beast and potatoes are put on the same level, 



33 6 IREN^US LETTERS. 

having no functions except corporeal, and with no principle 
of life that survives the dissolution of the corpus. This is 
the opinion of many in our day. It is also as old a theory 
as Epicurus who, in his garden-school at Athens 300 years 
before Christ, denied the immortality of the soul and taught 
the doctrine which Democritus had elaborated in his cos- 
mogony, and which was taught by Leucippus of Abdera, a 
hundred years before Epicurus was born, and held by the wits 
of Egypt a thousand years before. They called it the atomic 
theory : that matter is self-existent and originally composed 
of atoms, each atom having power of motion, and these 
atoms went whirling about like the bits of glass in a ka^ido- 
scope, till they stuck together in their present forms. This 
is as rational and philosophical as protoplasm, and is cer- 
tainly its germ out of which moners and other monsters are 
developed. 

How beautiful in contrast is the faith of the Christian. It 
is revealed to us in the Bible. The Lord God made man and 
"breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man 
became a living soul." Not so did he make a horse or a 
bird. Materialists, Epicureans, Haeckelians and others of 
that school, are consistent in putting equal value upon the 
life of a beast and a woman, or even in esteeming the former 
more highly if their tastes so lead them. But we who believe 
that Christ died for human beings only, and that they who are 
in Him become partakers of a divine nature also, see in man 
a dignity, sanctity and glory excelled only by the angels and 
Him " in whom we live and move and have our being." 



ARGUING WITH A POKER AND A HAMMER. 

A fearful tragedy commands my pen as I sit down to write 
this letter. On the banks of the Hudson river, in the midst 
of a Christian community, and just before Christmas last, 
the herald of peace and good will, a bloody drama was per- 
formed. 



ARGUING WITH A POKER AND A HAMMER. 337 

Above the village of Kingston and below Saugerties, on the 
western bank of this goodly river, is a region of country- 
known as Flatbush. Two Christian churches, the one Re- 
formed Dutch, the other Methodist Episcopal, flourish in this 
rural region. 

Mr. and Mrs. Rittie were a married pair, in middle age ; he 
the sexton of the Reformed Church, she an active member of 
the Methodist. However well they may have agreed on 
other matters, they were bound to differ on questions of faith 
and practice that distinguish the two communities, one Cal- 
vinistic, the other Arminian. How much either knew about 
doctrine is not stated. Both were very much set in their 
way. Arguments were frequent and earnest. Words how- 
ever made no very deep impression. The more they argued 
the more thoroughly convinced they were of the soundness 
and scripturalness of their respective opinions. Such a result 
is not unusual. John Knox and John Wesley could not 
have been more decided in their religious beliefs. It grew 
worse and worse. Breath was spent in vain. It generally is 
when disputants are warm, and this man and wife waxed 
warm, even in winter, when they fought the fight of faiths. 
It was not a good fight. And it is quite likely that the man 
usually got the worst of the argument. Certainly he worried 
the most over it, as would not have been the case had he 
been the victor in the war of words. 

Coming home from a hard day's work, he was invited by 
his loving spouse to go in the evening to the prayer meeting 
which her church people were holding, within half a mile of 
their own dwelling. To this kind invitation he replied, " No, 
Sarah, I am too tired to walk so far to-night : let's go to 
S wart's," a near neighbor. To which she answered, " No, if 
you can't go to prayer meeting with me, I am not going to 
Swart's with you." This she said in a sharp tone. It is 
affirmed of her that she had " a tongue in her head." People 
generally have; and so far as my knowledge of natural his- 
tory extends, husbands have tongues in their heads as well 
as wives ; yet it is more frequently remarked of women than 
of men, that they are gifted with this unruly member. They 



33 8 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

certainly do not enjoy a monopoly of it, though their skill in 
its use may give them the advantage in linguistic discussion. 
Being unable to convince the head of the house that it was 
his duty to go to prayer meeting with her, she went without 
him. We have no report of the part she took in the meeting, 
but, being an active, energetic sister, who had walked half a 
mile to the place, and was considerably excited when she 
started, it is probable that she exercised her gift of tongue 
according to her ability and opportunity. She returned 
home, and Martin, her husband, was yet at the neighbor's, 
visiting his friends. She might have called there and walked 
home with him. But such was not her disposition. She 
retired to their apartment, shut the door, locked it and 
fastened him out. What business had he to go out visiting 
while she was at prayer meeting: she would teach him a 
thing or two. In due time he came home, but the door was 
shut. He could get into the hall, but not into the room. 
He knocked and called, but the devout woman was deaf and 
dumb now. The Calvinist was discomfited. If she had 
argued with him through the keyhole, it is quite likely he 
would have given up a point or two of his tenets, for the 
sake of an armistice. But she scorned to take advantage of 
his embarrassment, and he made his way to the only refuge, 
a miserable garret, where, without bed or fire, he passed a 
bitterly cold night, in darkness, silence and solitude. He 
nursed his wrath, and that may have helped to keep him 
warm. Down stairs he came in the morning, and the scene 
that ensued when this loving pair met at the fireside, is in- 
ferred from the lines and marks left upon their respective 
heads. The heads of argument seem to have been these. She 
went for him and began to argue with a poker, giving him a 
blow over the left cheek bone ; and making so deep an impres- 
sion that the argument was found to fit exactly into the place 
for which it was intended. He replied with a hammer. 
Whether he studied up this subject in the midnight medita- 
tions of the garret and came down prepared for this new 
mode of answering her, does not appear, but he was ready 
with the hammer and smote her on the head therewith, until 






ARGUING WITH A POKER AND A HAMMER, 339 

he supposed he had finished her. Then suddenly a great 
horror came on him, as the neighbors rushed in and found 
him standing over the body of his wife. He stepped into the 
chamber from which she had barred him, and put an end to 
his own life with a razor. 

That is a little drama, in a rural village, in humble cottage 
life, this winter. But it is, in miniature, what has filled cities, 
and lands, and the world with violence, woe and blood. We 
are but learning now the principles of toleration, the duty 
and beauty of letting people have their own way of thinking 
and believing, if they cannot be converted to a better way by 
reason and love. I have compared notes on the subject with 
friends of late, and we agree in this : that the older we 
grow, the more clearly, intelligently and firmly we hold those 
opinions we have had from youth upwards, and the more 
cheerfully willing we are that others should hold opinions 
opposed to ours. The importance of controversial theology 
and of contending earnestly for the faith is not questioned; but 
the folly of arguing with an opponent, disputing with men 
or women about their religious belief, and emphatically 
getting excited about it, is so clear to me now, that the tongue 
seems almost as dangerous a weapon as a poker or a hammer. 
Reason has far less to do with the guidance of human 
opinions than we are apt to admit. Education, feeling, exam- 
ple, prejudice, self-interest, any one of these has more power 
with many persons than logic. The parent who lives a godly 
life and by the sweetness of his Christian spirit, his habitual 
kindness to companion, children, servants and friends, illus- 
trates the power of the faith he professes, will more surely 
convince his household of the truthfulness of his religious 
opinions, than he will by hammering their heads, or arguing 
at the table with every guest who does not believe as he does. 
Train children in the doctrines and duties of the gospel, rising 
up early and teaching them, show their power in a holy and 
happy life, patience in trials, energy in useful work, and hope 
in the worst of times, and children will not depart from the 
faith of their fathers. 

It is time to lay aside the poker and the hammer, the spear 



340 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

and the sword : to hang the trumpet in the hall and study- 
war no more. The world's great conqueror is the Prince of 
Peace. I cannot convince my neighbors that they are wrong, 
but I will love them, if they love Him who loves us both. 
Let us live and let live. And so much the more as we see 
the day approaching when there shall be neither Greek nor 
Jew, neither Barbarian nor Scvthian : for Christ is all in all. 



ANNA DICKINSON ON THEATRES. 

The theatre has a new champion in the field, Miss Anna 
Dickinson, who won much fame on the platform as a lec- 
turer and made a dead failure as a player on the stage. But 
she is not to be put down, and with a remarkably forgiving 
spirit, she has returned to the platform to advocate the 
stage. She is so stage-struck that in her delirium she de- 
clares the stage more a power in the world than the press or 
the church. She takes up the old and long since exploded 
doctrine, that the theatre is a school of morals, and upholds 
it as one of the great reforming agencies of the age, and all 
ages. 

Anna is behind the age. All the world knows better, and 
talks better, and no sensible man of to-day pretends to 
defend the theatre for such a silly reason as that. 

Alexandre Dumas, McCready, Edwin Booth, and such as 
they, know more about theatres than Miss Dickinson, and 
they tell a very different story. Alexandre Dumas said it is 
no place for our wives and daughters. He thought little of 
morals for men, but as it is nice to have women's morals 
kept as nearly right as may be, he would not have them 
frequent the play. This was the ground maintained by the 
great English actor, McCready, whose rivalry with Edwin 
Forrest culminated in the Astor Place riot of 1849. He pre- 
ferred that the ladies of his family should not frequent the 
theatre, though thereby he got his money and his fame. 



ANNA DICKINSON ON THEATRES. 34 1 

Edwin Booth, the greatest of living American actors, has 
recently given his written testimony that he never permits 
(Miss Dickinson never permits any man to say that of her) 
his " wife or daughter to witness a play, without previously 
ascertaining its character." 

I never come so near losing patience with others, who 
have the same right to their opinions that I have to mine, 
as when they assume and assert that the theatre, as it is and 
has been, is worthy of the encouragement and support of 
good men and women. I know that honorable and good 
men have said so. I have heard preachers plead for the 
theatre, on the platform surrounded by players. So I have 
read in the purest and best of the daily papers sneers at 
"educated persons" who denounce the theatre. And, at last, 
a woman comes to the footlights and declares theatres better 
than churches ! ! 

Now I am no bigot, nor purist, and wish tc have as wide a 
charity and as much liberality as any honest man should 
have. I do not quarrel with a man for holding conscien- 
tious convictions, religious opinions, views of right and duty, 
quite opposed to mine. To his own Master he stands or 
falls. I will dine, as my Master did, with publicans and 
sinners. And if good men will frequent theatres it is their 
lookout : I do not criticise them for so doing. It may do 
them no harm, if they frequent theatres, why may not I 
try to show that they are evil, only evil, and that continually? 
If Anna Dickinson thinks theatres better than churches, and 
longs to be a play actor, which she never can be, why may I 
not quote the words of the greatest lady player of the Ameri- 
can stage, Fanny Kemble, who wrote these words : 

" A business which is incessant excitement and fictitious emotion seems 
to me unworthy of a man, a business unworthy of a woman. Neither have 
I ever presented myself before an audience without a shrinking feeling- of 
reluctance, nor withdrawn from their presence without thinking the excite- 
ment I had undergone unhealthy and the personal exhibition odious." 

When she declares it "a business unworthy of a woman," 
Fanny Kemble utters the thought of the purest and best of 



342 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

her sex. When I was only ten years old I read in the Latin 
of Tacitus that the women of Germany were preserved in 
purity and kept from danger by being excluded from theatres. 
The evils of theatres are to be learned quite as much from 
Plato and Aristotle as from the Bible or any other book. 

Plato says : " Plays raise the passions and pervert the use 
of them, and of consequence are dangerous to morality." 

Aristotle held that " the seeing of comedies ought to be 
forbidden to young people, until age and discipline have 
made them proof against debauchery." 

Ovid, a poet so licentious that we had expurgated editions 
of his works, advised Augustus to suppress theatres as a 
great source of corruption. 

But modern theatres are better than the ancient : and are 
better now than they were twenty-five or fifty years ago. 
Just so. But they are not pure, never were and never can 
be. George Ticknor said of the Paris stage : 



"The old French drama contained often gross and indelicate phrases and 
allusions, but the tone of the pieces, as a whole, was generally respectable. 
The recent theatre reverses all this. It contains hardly any indecorous 
phrases or allusions, but its whole tone is highly immoral. I have not yet 
seen one piece that is to be considered an exception to this remark. I know 
nothing that more truly deserves the reproach of being immoral and demor- 
alizing than the theatres of Paris and the popular literature of the day." 



And the theatres of Paris are to-day just as pure and 
moral as those of New York. We have the French plays 
translated regularly and put on our stage, and the nastier 
they are the more popular, as the coffers prove. Even Anna 
Dickinson, an unmarried woman, names Camille as a moral 
play! ! ! Mr. Palmer, the well known manager of the Union 
Square Theatre of this city, said to the Tribune: "The 
American turns his back on the Shakespearean drama in the 
theatre, not because it possesses too much thought for him, 
but because its thoughts are too nastily expressed to suit his 
civilized taste." 

But the drama of Shakespeare is called the legitimate, and" 



ANNA DICKINSON ON THEATRES. 343 

the stage on which his plays are acted is the model school 
of virtue and manners ! 

Miss Dickinson declares the stage more powerful to-day 
in forming the morals of the age than the church ! So idle 
a remark is scarcely to be reconciled with the possession of 
one's senses. The stage cannot exist except in large cities. 
And here, in the largest city on the Continent, it could not 
survive a year but for the strangers within our gates. The 
number of people attending theatres is a mere handful com- 
pared with those who go to church. She says she has been 
fifteen times to see one play. Probably thousands have done 
the same, and that shows how few people there are who go. 
And if the opinions of Plato and Edwin Booth, of Aristotle 
and McCready, of Tacitus and Palmer, of Fanny Kemble and 
Ovid, are unitedly equal to the opinion of Miss Anna Dick- 
inson, I may be excused for believing, in my innocent igno- 
rance, that on the whole the Church is rather a better school 
of morals than the play-house. 

I would not be very positive as to a fact that a woman 
may deny. But having been a somewhat diligent student of 
history, especially in that department of it which treats of 
the progress of civilization, religion and morals, through the 
brilliant periods of Grecian and Roman life and glory, and 
in the rise of Western Empires and the development of 
modern art, science and humanity, and along that track of 
time which has seen the birth, growth, power, and benedic- 
tion of ten thousand institutions to make this world better, 
purer and happier, to relieve human suffering, to save fallen 
men and women from the deeper hell of their lost name and 
their unspeakable shame ; having seen in Italy and in Rus- 
sia, in Spain and Egypt even, institutions of mercy from 
which flow streams to make glad the desert of the world, I 
have observed they all had their rise, nourishment, and life 
in the Church. Not in my Church only, but in every Church 
that teaches the immortal destiny of man : the life of God in 
the human soul ! But never, never did I see or hear of one 
memorial of virtue or benevolence intended to bless poor, 
sick, dying humanity, that had its origin in that boasted 



344 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

school of virtue, called the theatre ! And I challenge all the 
champions of the stage, without distinction of race, sex, 
color, or previous condition, to point to any substantial 
good thing ever wrought by its influence. I speak not of 
actors, of whom many are good, benevolent men and women. 
But of the stage as an institution. As long ago as in the 
time of that poor King Charles I., a man named Prynne 
made a book containing a list of authorities, almost every 
name of eminence in the heathen and Christian world, bear- 
ing testimony against the stage: the Acts of 54 councils 
and synods; 71 ancient fathers; 150 Papal and Protestant 
authors, philosophers and poets, and the legislative enact- 
ments of Pagan and Christian States, nations, emperors and 
kings. 

But in spite of all these testimonies the stage lives. Just 
as ali other vices live. It is a running sore in the bosom of 
society. And sores are always running. So long as human 
nature loves evil rather than good, vice rather than virtue, a 
lascivious play like Camille, or a dirty opera like Traviata, 
will have admirers among the sons and daughters of men. 
But that only proves that the play is carnal, sold under sin. 
It always was a school of vice. The shores of time are peo- 
pled with the shades of its victims. To reform it is to break 
it down. Purify the stage, and as it falls its dying cry will 
be the words of the greatest master of the drama : " Fare- 
well ! Othello's occupation's gone." 



OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 

So many of my friends have recently gone to heaven, it is 
quite natural that thoughts of them and their surroundings 
should be frequent. And certainly they are very pleasant. 
If there was ever a time when religion and death and the life 
beyond were subjects of sad reflection, to be indulged only 
as a duty, such a time has passed away. It is now as cheer- 



OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN 345 

ing and agreeable to think of friends (and the more loved in 
life the more pleasant) enjoying the pleasures of the heavenly 
state, as to hear from others travelling in foreign lands, 
rejoicing in scenes and associations that satisfy their longing 
desires. The wisest and best of Roman moralists and philoso- 
phers enjoyed such thoughts of their friends gone before 
them into the unseen and eternal, and they anticipated with 
fond emotions a blissful reunion and refreshment in the 
society of the great and good. And with life and immortality 
brought to light by Revelation, what was to those ancient 
pagans a dreamy speculation scarcely worthy of being called 
a faith, is to us reality. Our faith is the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We have thus 
entered already upon the inheritance, so that we have the good 
of it and part of the glory, as the heir to a vast estate or a 
throne enjoys, long before he comes into possession, the 
reflected honors and pleasures awaiting. 

Names and faces and forms of friends who have within the 
past year preceded me into their rest, have been peopling the 
cheerful chambers of memory this evening. It is a rough 
night outside, and the day has been a weary one ; but now a 
soft fire-light fills the room and the study lamp is shaded, so 
that the silence and shadows invite converse with the spirit- 
ual and unseen. And the departed of the year have joined 
themselves with the many who finished their course before 
them, and are now in the midst of worship and feasts and 
friendship in the mansions of the blest. How pleasant their 
memories now ! How the heart gladdens with the remem- 
brance of the joys on earth and the hopes of higher in 
heaven ! 

Just about twelve years ago (it was Dec. 16, 1859) I had 
some friends at dinner with me : a larger number than are 
often gathered at my table ; but they were friends, valued 
friends, some of them very dear. It was a feast of fat things, 
and six hours flew away like so many moments, in that feast 
of reason and flow of soul, making an evening never to be 
forgotten here or hereafter. And of that dinner company, 
eighteen men are now in another state than this, their bodies 



34 6 2RENALUS LETTERS. 

mouldering in the ground, their souls gone to God ! ! ! Eigh* 
teen of my companions, associates in business, in the Church, 
in public and private life, personal friends, eating and drink- 
ing with me in one company, and now all gone ! 

I stopped just here and went to a drawer and took out a 
sheet of paper, on which is a diagram of the table and the 
seat that each one occupied, with his name written in it. The 
links of memory are brightened, so that their voices, their 
pleasantries, their very words of wit and wisdom, sparkling 
and bright, come flashing and shining, as on that glad and 
genial evening. At my right was the stalwart Edgar of Bel- 
fast, and on my left the polished Dill of Deny ; and just be- 
yond was the elegant and eloquent Potts ; and next to him 
the courtly and splendid Bethune ; S. E. and R. C. Morse, 
three years sundered by death, but just now reunited to be 
sundered never again ; and there was Krebs, himself a host, 
my companion in foreign travel and a most delightful friend ; 
and Murray, the " Kirwan " of the Observer, brightening the 
brightest with the humor of his native isle ; and Cooke, who 
was with me in Switzerland ; and that wonderful astronomer, 
Mitchell, who now looks down to study the stars ; and my 
friend Hoge, with love like that of woman ; and my brother, 
P. E. Stevenson. [Since I first wrote these lines, my guests 
have continued to go to heaven ; and I have now to add the 
names of Prof. S. F. B. Morse, J. R. Davison, James Stuart, 
Alexander Stuart, Joel Parker, D.D., G. D. Abbott, D.D., 
John Laidlaw, and Rev. William Adams, D.D., L.LD.] 
A brilliant company ; an acquisition to the skies ; stars all of 
them ; who finished their course with joy, and then entered 
into the joy of their Lord. It would seem that the earth 
could not spare all those men, and keep right on. But they 
are in fitting company, with the Lamb in the midst of them. 

" There is the throne of David, 
And there from toil released, 
The shout of them that triumph, 
The song of them that feast." 

And there is a younger company. All these were heroes 



OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN. 347 

and prophets and kings, but the children who have gone up 
there are children always. O blessed thought ! They were 
with us long years ago, and they are in our hearts the same 
playful little ones they were when the Father of us all asked 
them to come to his house. And they are his children and 
our children forever. That little one to whom David said 
he should go, is still the child of David, not an infant of days, 
for there are no days nor nights in heaven, but the saint-child 
radiant in immortal beauty. 

" O ! when a mother meets on high 
The babe she lost in infancy, 
Hath she not, then, for pains and fears, 

The day of woe, the watchful night, 
For all her sorrows, all her tears, 
An overpayment of delight ?" 

Heaven's floor is covered with them. Of. such is its king- 
dom. They have been going there — flying before they could 
walk, carried there by the angels — all these thousands of 
years. Yours are there. There, did I say ? We do not 
know where the place is, nor what a place is for spirits to 
dwell in. They may be near us, around us, ministering spirits 
sent forth to do us good, to strengthen us. They, or thoughts 
of them, have been so pleasantly with me to-night, that it is 
good to be here. It would be good, doubtless better, to be 
with them where they are, and with Him who has them near 
His face. There is nothing sad, depressing, in such com- 
munion. But it is getting late. The fire is low on the 
hearth. To-morrow will soon be here ; its duties require 
fresh life : and as death brings life eternal, so sleep makes 
new life for the day to come. 



348 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 



WHEN NOT TO LAUGH, 

Walter Scott, the great novelist and poet, the prince of 
genial good fellows, as fond of humor and hearty laughter as 
any man, on his dying bed, said to his son-in-law, 

" Lockhart, read to me." 

" What book shall I read ?" asked his son. 

" There is but one book for a dying man," replied the poet ; 
" read from the Bible." 

Walter Scott was fond of fun, he enjoyed humor, was a 
splendid story teller ; and he was a Christian believer, and 
his inner sense was enlightened to know and feel the fitness of 
things, the proprieties of time and place. To ask for a funny 
story, for something to make him laugh when he was dying, 
would have been as abhorrent to the tastes of Walter Scott, 
as to hear a joke cracked at his mother's funeral. 

Rev. Robert Collyer, in a recently published sermon on 
" Faith and Fear," closes up with the following story : 

Talking the other day about some grand, old saints that we had known, 
we spoke of one now dead, and a brother said, 

" Did you hear how he died ? He was a long time sick, you know, and 
in great pain, and when he felt the end had come, he sent for his two 
sons. 

" ' Boys,' he said, ' I am nearly through. I just wanted to see you and 
say good-bye. ' 

" They sat down beside his bed, and then he said, ■ One of you read to 
me.' 

"So one of them got the Bible. 'Nay, not that,' the old man said, 
quietly, ■ I don't need that now. I got it all into my heart years ago. 
My feet are planted on the promises. Everything that Book teaches for me 
has come clear. My trunk is packed, my ticket all right, and I am just 
going to start ; but now will you not get something new, pleasant and 
bright ? I have had a hard struggle with my pain, and would like to laugh 
just another time. I know it will do me good.' 

u And so one of the boys got some bit of sweet humor and read that ; and 
it was so, that while the light was shining in his eyes at the pleasant 
thoughts, they changed and caught the light that flashes from the immanent 
glory, and he was with the angels." 

Grand old man ! I was glad to hear that story. Trunk packed, ticket 



WHEN NOT TO LAUGH. 349 

made out, feet planted on the promises, just another ripple of laughter 
after the hard pain, and then the rest that remains. 

These two stories are in striking contrast. Scott wanted 
nothing so much as the Bible when he came to die. Collyer's 
saint wanted no more of the Bible, but something to make 
him laugh. Collyer rejoices in his saint : we rejoice in the 
prince of novelists. Scott's was the faith of a Christian : 
Collyer's that of a pagan. 

Humor is a good thing. Fun is healthful. We do not 
play enough, do not laugh enough. There is a time for every- 
thing, and the wisest of men has told us, and God told him 
to tells us, " There is a time to laugh." So there is a time to 
dance, and a time to weep, and a time to die. Everything is 
beautiful in its time. The Lord made it so. Humor and 
pathos have their dwelling places very near each other, and 
of them it may be said as Dryden said of wit and madness, 

" Thin partitions do their bounds divide." 

Or as Pope said, 

11 What thin partitions sense from thought divide. n 

And some men who are fullest of tears when sympathy with 
suffering asks for tears, are also overflowing with fun and 
frolic when laughter is in order. I have a broader sympathy 
with laughter than Pope, who wrote those familiar lines: 

" Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, 
And catch the living manners as they rise : 
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, 
But vindicate the ways of God to man." 

"Alas, poor Yorick," saith Shakespeare in Hamlet. "I 
knew him ; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." 
But I confess that when I read that sentence inscribed upon 
a tombstone, as the best epitaph that admiring friends could 
suggest and carve for posterity, I felt that it were better to 
live for something higher than merely to laugh and make 
others laugh. And as I read on the stone that memorial of 



35° IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

a man of wit, I could not but recite from the same play and 
the same scene, those other words of the greatest of poets : 

"Where be your jibes now? Your gambols ? Your songs ? Your 
flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar ?" 

George P. Morris was a poet and a wit and a genial table 
companion, and he wrote of the Bible in one of his songs : 

" In teaching me the way to live, 
It taught me how to die." 

And my old friend — and the friend of everybody who loves 
green fields and running brooks, and to sit all day in the 
shade of great trees, fishing or reading or thinking — my 
friend of other days, Izaak Walton, said of the Bible : 

11 Every hour I read you kills a sin, 
Or lets a virtue in to fight against it." 

And I love old George Herbert more even than I do his 
friend Izaak Walton ; and Herbert writes : 

" Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss ; 
The Book of stars lights to eternal bliss." 

That's my idea, precisely. And when I come to die, much 
as 1 have enjoyed Joe Miller and Percy, and those other 
benefactors of the race who have made us laugh betimes in 
spite of ourselves ; much as I am indebted for health and 
spirit to do the hard work of life, to the great humorists of 
this and other days, whose books are looking down upon me 
from long rows of shelves while I write, and whose covers 
make me smile when I think of the good things that are 
within ; yet I say, when I come to die, 1 will not want my 
friends to take a jest book or a comic paper for a joke to 
make me laugh as I step into the river. Laughing is very 
well when dining, not when dying. 

" Jesus, the music of Thy name 
Hath overpowering charms ; 
Scarce shall I feel death's cold embrace, 
If Christ be in my arms. 



WITH A PIRATE IN HIS CELL. 35 l 

" Then when ye hear my heart-strings break, 
How sweet the minutes roll, 
A mortal paleness on my cheeks, 
And glory in my soul." 

Read to me from the words of Him who saith, " He that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." 

Collyer's saint would have something " pleasant and bright;" 
not the Bible. If you would bring me something pleasant 
and bright, lift the vail and show me a " pure river of water 
of life, clear as crystal," and let me hear the voice that says : 
There shall be no night there — the city hath no need of the 
sun, nor of the moon to shine in it — her light is like unto a 
stone most precious. 

It seems to me that is pleasant and bright. The best joke 
I ever heard would not make me so happy in dying as to hear 
my Master's words, " Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



WITH A PIRATE IN HIS CELL. 

Thirty-six years ago, in the City Prison, — called the 
Tombs, from the Egyptian style and the gloomy look, — was 
confined a man under sentence of death. He was a pirate, 
bearing the singular name of Babe. It was doubtless a ficti- 
tious name, but the public knew him by no other. 

I had heard much of this pirate: the papers of the day 
had startling accounts of his career. His trial in this city 
had resulted in his conviction under the United States laws, 
and, after two reprieves, he was now waiting the day of his 
execution. He insisted strongly that he could produce evi- 
dence to establish his innocence if he had time granted him. 

Then it was also alleged that the odd name of Babe con- 
cealed the name of a distinguished family in New York, the 
mention of which, even at this day, would startle the hearer, 
so well is it known to the religious world. This fact inten- 
sified my interest in the man, and I went to the prison in the 



352 IRENMUS letters. 

hope of being permitted to see him, and to try to do him 
good. 

The keeper led me to the tier of cells, and the murderers' 
row, where such as he were confined. He was allowed to sit 
outside of his cell, but was carefully watched ; and as I came 
upon the stairs he rose, entered his cell and shut the door. 
This was discouraging, but I asked the keeper to go to the 
cell and say to him that "a young minister would like to pay 
him a visit, if it would be agreeable." The keeper complied, 
and soon returned with word that Babe would be glad to 
see me. I stepped through the low portal. He swung the 
iron door back to its place with a clang, and I was alone 
with the pirate in his cell. The sensation was novel, and 
not pleasant. I had often conversed with convicts through 
the grating of the cell door. I had taught six convicts to 
read by giving them lessons at the hole in their cell doors, 
and they had recited to me whole chapters of the gospel, 
not a letter of which did they know until they were thus 
taught in prison. But this was the first time I had been 
shut in with a convict. He gave me the only chair, while he 
sat on the bunk. As I took off my hat, he asked me to 
keep it on, as the cell was cool. 

Before me was a handsome young man, twenty-two years 
old; tall, well formed, a model of strong muscular action, 
with a bright eye and intelligent face, and his whole look and 
bearing indicated genteel birth and manners. I said : 

" My dear sir, I have not intruded upon you with any feel- 
ing of idle curiosity ; I come as a friend, a Christian friend, 
to speak with you of your precious soul." 

"I am glad to see you," he replied, with a clear, pleasant 
voice. I then asked him what views he had of the future, 
when he thought of the possibility that he might, before a 
great while, be called into another state of being. With 
wonderful coolness, indicating total unconcern, he replied : 

" My views, I suppose, are the same as yours or those of 
any other man. My mind is just as much at ease as that of 
any man in New York, but" — and here he clenched both 
fists and brandished his arms while he said; 



WITH A PIRA TE IN HIS CELL. 353 

" I am just as innocent of the crime for which I am shut 
up here, as you are, but I am pursued by a set of blood- 
hounds who mean to get me hanged." He became furious, 
and I began to fear he was dangerous. As soon as he 
paused, I resumed : 

" I did not come to make any inquiry about your guilt or 
innocence of this particular crime, but to ask you if you have 
not sins to repent of, and to be forgiven before you can be at 
peace with God, and be prepared to die and meet Him in 
judgment/' 

He admitted this general truth, and I preached Jesus 
Christ the only and the sufficient Saviour. And in the 
midst of the appeal I said to him, looking into his eye with 
tenderness: "You have parents perhaps living, I hope pray- 
ing for you now," and he answered : " I have respectable 
relatives" — he did not say parents — " living in this city, but 
they do not know that I am here; and if I were to die 
to-morrow, they would not find me out." 

It was in vain that I urged him to seek reconciliation 
with those who ought to be his friends. And I had no 
reason to suppose that he had the slightest inclination to- 
ward the Saviour, whom I offered with earnest words and 
prayers. 

It is quite probable that he was the unacknowledged son 
of a distinguished family, whose influence with the President 
of the United States procured his pardon. It is certain that 
he produced no new evidence of his innocence, but he was 
set at liberty. I never heard of him again. Perhaps, under 
another name, he resumed his rover-life, and found his 
death on the seas or on the scaffold. 

It is very true that, in this gloomy prison, by far the most 
who enter are from the degraded, ignorant and squalid 
classes. The slums feed the prisons and the poorhouses. 
But not all are the sons of the low and wretched. The hand- 
somest boy in college with me, the son of a magistrate of 
wealth and influence, died in one of the cells in this same 
prison. A friend of mine, a professor of languages and a 
superior scholar, with associations as respectable as any, 



354 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

died in one of the cells of these living Tombs. There is not 
a week in the year when there not some — often there are 
several — who have fallen from the heights of good society 
to the depths of sin, shame, misery and the dungeon, from 
which the gate of deliverance is death. In a great city like 
this there are tragedies of domestic and social anguish con- 
stantly in progress. Forty dead men lay one morning at 
the Morgue last week, waiting to be claimed by friends. No 
friends came. In most cases death was a comfort to survi- 
vors, and oblivion a cover of sorrow and shame. 

All this is to say that the gospel ought to be always at 
work in this prison. The Son of Man came to seek and save 
the lost. Over the doors of Dante's Inferno was written: 
11 Who enter here, leave hope behind." But while there is 
life there is hope. No other name but Jesus does these 
lost men good. And that name can, and does. While in 
this world we shall have constant war with sin and misery. 
Especially with sin, which is the parent of misery. There 
are many nostrums prescribed by quack doctors, who call 
themselves reformers, but they do no good. A drunkard 
may be saved whom God renews and holds in his right hand. 
When the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his 
spots, then will he who has been accustomed to do evil learn 
to do well. It is Christ who alone is able to save unto the 
uttermost. 

What is the use of saying this over and over again : the 
same old story, Jesus and his blood : the sinner lost and the 
sinner saved ? Well, it is just this : life is wearing along 
with each of us, and every day brings us so much nearer to 
its end. To save ourselves and others, to deliver men from 
the bondage of sin and misery, to get the lost out of the mire 
of vice and their feet on the Rock of Ages — this is the great- 
est of all the works that men or angels can do. 



A WOMAN'S VIEW OF CRIME. 355 



A WOMAN'S VIEW OF CRIME. 

The quantity of nonsense precipitated by the agitation of 
questions of reform is something fearful. Happy they who 
are not compelled to read the many prescriptions of quacks 
and quidnuncs who discover new theories of vice and fresh 
remedies for crime, and inflict them on an anxious and cred- 
ulous community. " The world is full of evil," said the 
poets hundreds of years ago, and thousands of years ago the 
pen of infinite wisdom and omniscient penetration wrote, 
"the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately 
wicked." Yet there are not a few men and women, in these 
days of wonderful light and progress, who pretend to find 
the source of all vice in bad drainage or the state of the 
stomach. They would cure it like typhus or ague. 

This quackery has resulted in miserable sympathy for 
scoundrels as if they were the most unfortunate of the human 
race. If they become so sick as to commit burglaries or 
highway robberies they are pitied and petted, coddled and 
comforted : and if they become murderers they are adopted 
as children to be nursed by women and soft-hearted men, 
with jellies and panada. 

One of the most active of these foolish women has written 
and published an essay on prison reform, beginning with 
these words : 

" All crime can be traced to ignorance, intemperance or 
poverty." 

The statement is absurd and false. Yet a vast amount of 
writing and talking on prison and prisoners, crime and crim- 
inals, is equally shallow and mischievous. The three sources 
of crime named are indeed prolific, but there are other and 
fearful sources, including an evil heart, whence proceed evil 
deeds, even murders, and into these sources or fountains of 
crime, there does not enter a drop of ignorance, intemper- 
ance or poverty. Men and women of education, temperance 
and wealth commit crimes. Neither they, nor their fathers 
nor mothers were ignorant, intemperate or poor. Why 



35 6 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

then does a writer on prison reform lay down a rule that is 
instantly disproved when crimes are traced to avarice, lust, 
revenge, ambition, jealousy and pure deviltry ? 

At the very moment when this wisdom was being written 
and published, there we're in this city and Brooklyn hard by, 
a number of men under sentence of death for murder : the 
three causes of crime had nothing to do with any of them. 
Take Fuchs who, in a fit of jealousy, chopped his friend into 
pieces. Rubenstein, the Jew, was not ignorant, intemper- 
ate or poor. Neither was his father. Yet he enticed his 
friend into a cornfield and murdered her deliberately. The 
Boston murderers, Pomeroy and Piper, were not tempted 
or driven to crime by any circumstances outside of their 
own wicked selves. To say, as this prison reform woman 
does, that ''all crime can be traced to ignorance, intemper- 
ance and poverty," is in the teeth of that precept which 
reads : " When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin ; 
and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." That is 
the philosophy of the whole matter, and put into the quaint 
words of the old English Bible, sounds professional, but 
cannot be made more impressive or intelligible. A poor 
man takes his choice to work or to steal. He chooses to 
steal. The prison reformer says " the cause of this crime is 
poverty." Nonsense. Poverty stimulates thousands to hon- 
est work. It is the cause of virtue far more than it is a 
cause of vice. A good man under the pressure of poverty, 
and the vast majority of the human family, depend upon 
daily labor for daily bread, and are hungry when they do 
not work. If poverty was the cause of crime, the world 
would be depopulated by the crimes of its inhabitants. 
Ignorance is not the cause of crime. Scarcely a sane man 
living, in the darkest land under heaven, is so ignorant as to 
commit crime in consequence of it, or from want of knowl- 
edge that it is wrong to steal and commit murder. And if 
the entire population of the United States were taught the 
whole circle of sciences and arts, so that uneducated men 
were as rare as angels on earth, there would yet be crime. 
The Bingham ton murderer, Ruloft, was a prodigy of learn- 



A WOMAN'S VIEW OF CRIME. 357 

ing. Dr. Webster was a Professor in our oldest University. 
Eugene Aram was a school teacher. And the ignoble army 
of official rascals, whose thefts in this city, in the canal rings 
of the State, in the Washington departments and the County 
Treasuries, are not poor, ignorant or intemperate. The 
whiskey villains now in prison, and the greater number out, 
were not drunkards on their own poison, crooked or straight. 
Intemperance deprives its victim of judgment and con- 
science, inflames his passions, until he is "set on fire of 
hell." Hence more crimes are traced to this than to any 
other source. But this is itself a crime. To say that intem- 
perance causes crime is merely saying, what is very true, 
that one crime causes more. Therefore it is the veriest 
quackery in reform to lay it down as a great principle that 
" All crime can be traced to ignorance, intemperance and 
poverty." It is simply nonsense. Another proposition 
equally absurd is laid down by the same writer in the same 
essay. She says : 

"Prisoners should be sentenced until reformed : not for ten or twenty 
years with no regard to reform." 

This folly has its origin in the common blunder of these 
sapient reformers that the object of punishment is to reform 
men. That it is earnestly to be sought for, is very true, but 
law and penalty are not designed for the reformation of the 
convict. His reformation is a very desirable object, and al] 
suitable means should be employed for that purpose. But 
law and penalty are for the protection of society, the preven- 
tion of crime and the just punishment of criminals. If Win-. 
slow is brought back to Boston and convicted of his numer- 
ous forgeries and sent to prison, his reformation is no part 
of the object in view. God grant that the fellow may be 
reformed. But the object of the sentence is to punish for- 
gery, restrain others from doing the same, and so make it 
safer for men to rely on the signatures of their neighbors. 
It was no part of the intent of the law to reform Dolan when 
it condemned him to the gallows. It was to make the pen- 
alty a terror to evil-doers. Yet the moment that saw him 






35 8 IREN^US LETTERS. 

justly doomed, these reformers went about with petitions to 
get his neck out of the halter he so richly deserved. 

And now for the height of folly. The magnitude of the 
crime is not to be taken into account in imposing the pen- 
alty ! Ten years or twenty years are not to be a measure of 
what is due to the law, but the prisoner is to be sentenced 

TILL HE REFORMS ! ! 

Pray tell us, Mrs. Reformer, who is to judge of the pris- 
oner's reformation? Will you have a committee of the 
Prison Association to examine each convict and decide 
when he is reformed sufficiently to be let out upon society 
again ? 

Just imagine Judge Daly on the bench, pronouncing sen- 
tence upon a thief or a murderer in these words : 

M Patrick O'Halligan, you have been tried and justly convicted of a great 
crime : under the old law you would have been sentenced to the gallows, or 
to prison for life, but under the reformed system introduced by the good 
women who now manage our criminal practice, it is my duty to sentence 
you to stand committed until you reform. I will appoint one of these 
excellent women to take charge of your reformation, and, under her direc- 
tion, I have no doubt that a few days will see you turned out a reformed 
man, fully qualified to do your duty as a good citizen. Begging pardon for 
having detained you so long, I now wish you good afternoon." 

And this stuff is now the model talk of prison reform. It 
is all cant, folly, falsehood, sham, and deserves to be hissed 
out of philanthropic circles. Yet it is endorsed by religious 
people in this city. 



MINISTERS' SONS. 359 



MINISTERS' SONS. 



My attention was recently turned to the fact that a few, 
and but a few, of the sons of the clergy, in the city, had be- 
come ministers of the gospel. The means of making a pre- 
cisely accurate statement of the facts are not in my possession, 
and the memory of others will doubtless retain the names of 
some that I have forgotten. Within the last thirty-five years 
I have known the sons of Potts, Bangs, Alexander, Skinner, 
Tyng, Hutton, Chambers, Newell, Knox, Vermilye, who have 
entered the ministry. But what are these, added to those 
not mentioned, compared with the multitude of fathers in the 
Church, whose sons have not entered into their labors, or the 
service of God in the same calling ? 

Then I wrote to Princeton and asked Dr. McGill to give 
me the number of students in the Theological Seminary there, 
whose fathers are or were ministers, and he wrote me : "As 
nearly as I can ascertain, we have 24 sons of ministers among 
the 120 on our roll at present, about one in five, a smaller 
proportion than usual here." 

A similar inquiry in the New York Union Theological 
Seminary, brought to me about the same report. To some 
it may appear that this is as large a number as might be rea- 
sonably expected. The proportion of ministers to the whole 
population is so small, that a school of one hundred should 
not perhaps be expected to contain more than one-fifth of 
its members of the families of one profession. And it is not 
impossible that we would find it equally true of the legal and 
medical professions, that the sons do not generally follow the 
calling of their fathers. But it is also worthy of note that 
the work of the ministry has an element in it that does not 
touch the call to any other profession. While it is very true 
that the hand of God is to be acknowledged in every man's 
destiny, and He appoints to one man his place, and to another 
his ; still we, who believe in a divine and specific call as part 
of the evidence that a man should go into the ministry, do 



360 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

not ask for such an indication to decide that a young man 
shall go into trade or any other secular calling. 

Nor is it true that every man whom God calls obeys. As 
Jonah fled from his duty, so thousands now-a-days shirk 
theirs. God does not send a whale to swallow and save 
them, as he did in the case of Jonah; but we have known 
many cases in which they who have run away from the work 
to which they were called of God, have fallen into worse fates, 
and have bitterly repented their disobedience. 

If I were required to name two reasons for the few recruits 
the ministry gets from its own children, I would venture 
upon the facts that the sons of some are tempted by the 
chances of worldly success, and the sons of others are dis- 
couraged by the trials they suffer with their fathers. 

The temptation is presented by the facilities which business 
offers to the well-educated sons of pastors. Every depart- 
ment of prosperous trade in the hands of a parishioner is an 
opening for a promising young man who comes with the 
prestige of his own and his father's good name, so that a 
pastor is not under the necessity of seeking long and anx- 
iously for a place into which to introduce his son, but places 
are always open and ready for him. 

The trials that discourage the minister's son from walking 
in the ways of his father, are common to the lot of the larger 
part of the families whose head is a preacher of the gospel. 
With the many, life is just a struggle to make the two ends 
of the year meet : old things must not be done away, but all 
things must be made as good as new, if possible : and to take 
no thought for the morrow when a flock of children are to be 
clothed and fed, requires an amount of grace greatly to be 
prized, if it can be had. Human nature is very imperfect, 
and it is not wonderful that a bright, observant and thought- 
ful boy should, even with the approbation of his father, turn 
away from the service that seems so hard, when it ought to 
be more abundantly alleviated by those who enjoy it. 

It was never designed of Christ that his ministry should be 
a life of ease, profit and worldly recompense : but that is no 
apology for the meanness of those who keep their pastors on 



MINISTERS' SONS. 361 

the shortest possible allowance. I have known the children 
of ministers to put out, like birds unfledged from the nest, 
and, before they were fit for it, to try to earn their own living, 
because they saw their parents unable to provide for them 
suitable food and clothing. I have had, as a guest in my 
own house, a rural pastor seeking his runaway son, who had 
left home for no reason in the world but to cease being a tax 
upon his overtaxed parents. We may say, with truth, there 
is no calling that, on the whole, yields more peace and joy 
than the service of God in the pastoral work : but it is also 
true that its peace and joy come not from the reward that is 
seen, but altogether from the unseen and eternal. The boys 
cannot see it, and they seek another sort. 

It is said and proved and felt that there are too many min- 
isters, but it is not shown that there are too many of the 
stamp the Church needs and desires to have. Perhaps there 
has been a back-set to the tide that once flowed in upon the 
ministry, and just now there may be a reluctance to go into 
the service. But there is not now, never was, never will be a 
time when a youth of fine promise should be turned away 
from this work by the glitter of any crown within the reach 
of a human arm. It is the prize of the highest calling. The 
rich and the noble of the earth may not be often called. But 
the mother who dedicates her son to the ministry and gives 
him to Christ, prays with and for him that he may be called, 
and sees him pressing through hardships and suffering into 
the pulpit as a minister of the gospel of the grace of God, 
seeks for him and gains for him, a crown that fadeth not, and 
will one day outshine the stars. 

That is a miserable lie which says that ministers' sons are 
the worst in the parish. One prodigal from the pastor's own 
fold makes more talk than ninety and nine apostates from 
the rest of the church. Because ministers' sons, as a rule, 
are good, the badness of some is a wonder and the town's 
talk. The promise is to the believing parent. After the 
fathers shall be the children. The sons of David shall sit on 
his throne. It is a kingly honor to be servant of the Most 
High. And blessed is that minister whose sons are kings. 



362 IREN&US LETTERS, 



A MINISTER WHO WAS HUNG. 

William Dodd was an English clergyman, born in May, 
1729, and educated at the University of Cambridge. He 
married a woman of extravagant tastes, and in this respect, 
as in many others, their tastes were alike. 

After being ordained he was made rector of the parish of 
West Ham, near London. There he proved to be so elo- 
quent that he was soon called into the city and became one 
of its celebrities. With his popularity and prosperity he was 
more and more extravagant and reckless in his style of 
living. To meet his expenses he engaged in literary work 
outside of his clerical duties ; he was made tutor of young 
Philip Stanhope, afterwards Lord Chesterfield : and at 
length was appointed chaplain to the King. Chesterfield 
became his best friend : or worst : got him through many 
troubles, helped him to money, and to his ruin, of course : 
for, when he wanted more than his patron would give him, 
he committed a forgery upon Lord Chesterfield for $20,000, 
was tried, convicted and executed. Great efforts were made 
to save him. The jury recommended him to mercy. 
Noblemen, clergymen, and 23,000 citizens of London pe- 
titioned the King to interfere, but the government declined 
to do so and the reverend criminal, under the law of the 
times, was hanged at Tyburn, June 27, 1777. 

Then, as now, commercial business, that exchange which 
requires the constant use of paper and signatures, was the 
life blood of social and national prosperity. To tamper 
with public confidence in the bonds of individuals or cor- 
porations was to taint the blood of the community, poison 
the springs of wealth, derange the circulation, and damage 
irreparably the laws of healthful trade. A forger might 
have personal friends to intercede for him, but government 
and society looked upon him as a pirate, an outlaw, a thief 
of the meanest kind, justly meriting the heaviest punish- 
ment the laws inflict. It was therefore held to be the duty 
of the King to interpose no obstacle, but to let the law take 



A MINISTER WHO WAS HUNG. 3 6 3 

its course. The condemned clergyman became very penitent. 
His "Thoughts in Prison" and " Reflections on Death" are 
still extant and indicate the sentiments of an educated cler- 
gyman in view of the scaffold. And so he died. 

Even more emphatically now, than a hundred years ago, 
the business of men is carried on by the means of paper, and 
the confidence felt in the genuineness of signatures and the 
honesty of transactions, is at the basis of daily and hourly 
intercourse. We give and receive promises to pay, we make 
our deposits in bank, we take certificates, bonds, mortgages, 
relying on the honesty of somebody, for not in one case out 
of a hundred, in the affairs of every-day life, is a man able to 
go back to the original parties, and know that it is all right. 
He takes it for granted, because of his confidence in human 
nature generally, and certain men in particular. And this 
confidence has become so large and business habits so loose 
in consequence of it, and greed has grown with the ease of 
getting, and money has cheapened by its adulteration, as 
rags take the place of precious metals, until it has now 
come to pass that crimes like that of Mr. Dodd and crimes 
in the same line with his, are of daily occurrence to the 
ruin of individuals and of that trust which society has a 
right to feel in its representative men. I do not say that all 
bankruptcies are criminal, though they are always failures 
to pay obligations honestly due. They are oftentimes the 
result of misfortunes, the crimes of others, and events that 
no human foresight could anticipate. But, so far as they 
come from imprudence, recklessness, greed, haste to be rich, 
improvidence, inattention, extravagance, speculation, or an 
over-sanguine temperament, they are criminal and merit 
punishment by law. 

All defalcations are crimes. All breaches of trust are 
crimes. All uses of other people's money without their 
consent, are crimes. 

Yet it is not unusual, in our times, to look upon a de- 
faulter in a bank or counting room, as a generous fellow, 
who intended to put back the money he stole, so soon as he 
had made enough by gambling to warrant him in turning 



3^4 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

himself into an honest man. It does not occur to me at this* 
moment that we have punished a defaulter in this city 
during the last quarter of a century. I have no doubt there 
have been more than five hundred detected in their crimes. 

There is a law of the United States requiring the publica- 
tion annually of the names of defaulting officers, with the 
amounts they severally stole. Since 1865 the law has not 
been complied with. It is a good law, but it would be better 
still to put the defaulters invariably into the penitentiary. 
One year of righteous justice would save the country mil- 
lions of money in the future. 

When treasurers or trustees are caught in their abuse of 
trust, they should be sternly held in the hand of justice. 
And there are men w r hose names have stood high in the 
church and whose false pretences have beggared thousands, 
yet these financiers are clothed in fine linen and fare sump- 
tuously every day, while their victims are hungry and cold. 
These are serious matters, and big with future ills. 

It is not desirable to revive capital punishment for crimes 
against property. Let it be granted that the law condemn- 
ing Dr. Dodd to death was wTong, and was wisely modified. 
But the crime, and all similar crimes, by which the money 
of others is taken from them by forgery, or defalcation, or 
breach of trust, or carelessness, or deception or fraud, ought 
to be punished as crime, not compromised, covered up, ex- 
cused and so encouraged. 

Here is the weakness of the public conscience in this dawn 
of a new century of the Republic. This is the failing link in 
the social chain at the present day. Men look upon money 
crimes as venial sins. One hundred years ago, Tweed 
and Connolly and Sweeny, and all the men who took the 
people's money for work they never did, would have been 
hung ; Harry Genet and Tom Fields would have graced the 
gallows (they never graced anything else). How is it now? 
It is impossible to discover a public feeling that demands 
the punishment of official thieves. A hundred years ago the 
men who let Tweed escape would have been hung, by law or 
without law. 



A MINISTER WHO WAS HUNG. 365 

To what is this tending? Each advancing year increases 
the desire for wealth, diminishes the security of property, 
enhances the number, the pay and the opportunities of men 
holding judicial places, weakens public conscience respect- 
ing stealing, blurs the eighth commandment in the deca- 
logue, magnifies the influence of riches, rewards success in 
getting money without scruple as to the means, and puts 
honor on men who should be dressed in striped woolens, 
breaking stone instead of the laws, in the prisons of the 
country. 

Children in school and in the family should be taught " it 
is a sin to steal a pin, much more a greater thing." I do not 
wish to see the gallows made the punishment for stealing. 
But, I would be rejoiced to see a revival of common honesty. 
Things would then be called by their right names, and trea- 
surers, clerks and trustees, directors and traders, bankers, 
and all who have the watch and care of other people's money, 
would understand that the meanest thief in this world, 
meaner than the sneak-thief who climbs into the window 
while we are at dinner and steals, meaner than the man who 
steals his neighbor's sheep in the night, is that professedly 
honest Christian who has the custody of another's money 
and puts it to his own use, or the man who abuses the con- 
fidence of his fellow men by forgery or fraud. 



366 IRENALUS LETTERS. 



TORTURING THE LITTLE ONES. 

Two kinds of cruelty to children are so common, that to 
speak of one and not the other, would leave the subject half 
handled. You have children perhaps. If not, your neigh- 
bors have. And this matter of caring for children is becom- 
ing so much a matter of business, that we have a Society in 
this city to prevent them from being cruelly treated. It is 
an excellent Society. Good men, and all sorts of good men, 
favor it. None but bad men, and very bad men, would 
hinder its usefulness. 

And the two kinds of cruelty to children will be brought 
to your notice by the fact that there is a treatment of chil- 
dren never complained of by the Society, that makes more 
misery to children and parents than beatings or hunger. 

I know a prominent member of the Society for the Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Children. He is the father of one 
little girl now about four years old. He doubtless loves her 
dearly. He thinks that loving her is shown by letting the 
child have her own way. She has it. She is never restrained, 
never governed, never crossed, always petted, indulged, and 
obeyed. The child rules the house. Father, mother, ser- 
vants are all her slaves. What comes of it ? Is the child 
happy because she lords it over the whole family ? So far 
from it, she cries with passion or pain a large part of the 
time. She is never contented. She goes from one thing to 
another in a constant series of searches for something to do 
that she ought not to do. And when she wants what it is 
impracticable to get, — as the boy who cried for the moon, — 
then she goes into tantrums and screams loud enough to 
split the ears of the neighbors. Thus the family are annoyed : 
the neighbors are annoyed : the child is wretched, peevish, 
fretful, impatient, passionate, dissatisfied with everything, 
and generally miserable. 

And she is very disagreeable. It was an ill-natured re- 
mark of Jerrold to a mother who apologized for her child 
crying in the parlor : " O," said he, " I like to have children 



TORTURING THE LITTLE ONES, 367 

cry in company, for then they are taken right out of the 
room." And whenever I visit my friend, and his child sets 
up a roar, I think of Jerrold, and wish that his observation 
were in accord with my experience* which it is not. 

But it is a most mistaken idea that indulgence is kindness. 
Often it is the greatest cruelty. To impress upon a child 
the duty of obedience is the first of all lessons* It may be 
taught before the child is a year old ; and without a blow, or 
the infliction of any physical pain. It must be taught in 
very early life, or it will never be learned. To neglect it, 
and to put oft. government, until the child is old enough to 
be reasoned with, is cruel, wicked and silly. This neglect 
makes infancy and childhood a season of suffering, sows 
seeds of misery in after life, and perhaps of ruin here and 
hereafter. 

Dr. Adams said that parental government is the corner- 
stone of civil government. And when I see the streets of a 
great city thronged at night with wrecks of young men and 
young women, whose steps already take hold on hell, I know 
that most of them are the victims of parental indulgence. 
They come from households where parents let them have 
their own way, when they should have been governed. Read 
the story of Eli and his sons, and tremble as you read. 

If we must have a Society for every thing, — and we have a 
new one every year — let it be an " Anti-letting-children- 
always-have-their-own-way Society." It will be a mercy to 
the children. Many will be saved from tears and groans 
and cries, by being " made to mind," and some will be kept 
from that place of torment where weeping and wailing have 
no end. Indulgence in wrong is the gravest cruelty to a 
child. I wish the new Society would go for its own mem- 
bers who ruin their children as Eli did. He fell over and 
broke his neck when he heard that his boys were killed, for 
he knew that their sad end was his fault. So it will be your 
own fault, if your children perish through your neglect to 
govern them when they are in tender years. 

That is one kind of cruelty. Now for the other. 

A few days ago, a teacher in a public school, to punish a 



36S 1RENMUS LETTERS. 

child, lifted him by the ears, dropped him, lifted him again 
and again and dropped him, till the child was seriously, per- 
haps fatally, injured. I have seen a lady lifting a child by 
the ears and carrying it out of a room to punish it for some 
trifling offence. We are shocked and disgusted by the 
recital of brutalities inflicted on children by their drunken 
parents or infuriated teachers ; but it is quite probable that 
the amount of cruelty by in judicious and respectable parents, 
under a mistaken sense of duty, far exceeds the crimes of 
the ignorant and intemperate. Many parents box the ears 
of children, — striking them a square blow on the side of the 
head, — a dangerous and wicked punishment. The sudden 
compression of the air within the ear is very apt to be inju- 
rious, and the shock to the brain is perilous to the intellect. 
The injury may not be perceived at the time, but the founda- 
tion of future and unspeakable suffering and sorrow may be 
laid by one inconsiderate blow on the temple of a child. 
More common than this, and equally cruel, is the practice 
of pulling the ears of children, the most common mode, with 
some parents, of punishing their own children. Teachers 
sometimes hold a child's ear while he is reading, and pinch 
or pull it at every blunder, thus hoping to keep the child's 
attention fixed for fear of the pain. A worse mode could 
not be adopted, for the child's mind is diverted to the dan- 
ger and from the lesson, and so he stumbles. Such parents 
and teachers deserve corporal punishment themselves. The 
delicate organism of the human ear requires the most gentle 
handling, and to treat it as a mere cartilage to be pulled for 
the purpose of punishing, is a piece of inhumanity that 
reason forbids and religion condemns. Some parents send 
their children into a dark closet where they are in terror of 
imaginary goblins. Perhaps this is not as common as it was 
fifty years ago, but it is not out of use. It is not unfre- 
quently the cause of idiocy or insanity, and no judicious 
parent will permit it to be practiced in his house. Nurses 
often frighten children with tales of terror, threats of bears 
and big men, to carry them off. A nurse detected in such 



TORTURING THE LITTLE ONES. 3 6 9 

crimes should be discharged before night. She cannot be 
cured. And she must not be endured. 

Cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden by human 
law. It is wonderful that parental instincts and human love 
are not strong enough to restrain the hand of fathers and 
mothers from hasty, passionate and intemperate violence on 
their own flesh and blood. A father vents his impatience 
on the son of his affections. A mother worn with care, 
wanting to read her novel or go to sleep, beats her babe to 
make it quiet. But a parent or teacher should never punish 
a child, in heat or with sudden violence. Such punishment 
has no moral force in it. The calm, judicial, righteous 
judgment is as needful in the infliction of pain upon an err- 
ing child, as in the sentence of a prisoner at the bar. If you 
cannot govern yourself, you are quite unfit to govern chil- 
dren, and if you strike a child in haste or under excitement, 
you deserve to be whipped yourself. 

Is the rod to be abolished, and would we condemn the 
punishment of children when they do wrong at home or in 
school ? So far from it, the wisdom of Solomon is wisdom 
yet. To deny the right and duty of punishing disobedient 
children, is logically to overturn the government of man and 
of God. And as obedience in society is in order to the 
highest happiness of the community, so in the family those 
children are the happiest who are taught and required to 
obey. Scolding will not make them obedient. Fretting 
makes them worse. Harshness, severity, cruel pains, loud 
words; and hasty blows are all wrong. But an even temper, 
inflexible purpose, unyielding to the entreaties of the child 
who wishes to do wrong; these are virtues that dwell in 
every right mind, and will regulate the government of every 
well-ordered house. 



37° IREN^EUS letters. 



MILK AND WATER. 

Our good people, in this unhappy city, are afflicted with all 
sorts of impostors, swindlers, thieves, robbers, and even mur- 
derers. Among them, perhaps, the sellers of impure milk 
are as bad as any. We think of milk as the natural food of 
our little ones, and when they imbibe a cup of the whole- 
some fluid, we imagine it will do them good. So it would, 
if what is called milk were milk. 

It is an emblem of the best, even of heavenly food. The 
"sincere milk of the Word," we are told, should be "de- 
sired," as if we were "new-born babes," that we " may grow 
thereby." But it must be "sincere" milk; that is pure, 
sine cera, without wax, as pure honey is sincere. If the 
Word has a mixture of error in it, the hearer will not " grow 
thereby:" it will do him no good, perhaps will be the death 
of him. So the milk we buy at our doors and use for our- 
selves and families, must be sincere milk, pure, without 
adulteration, or it will not answer the purpose. And this is 
what we have had some lawsuits about lately. 

Our Board of Health has been putting its fingers into the 
milk cans with some good results. Having been provided 
with a milk-tester, called a lactometer, they have an easy 
method of finding out whether milk is mixed with water or 
not. It is a better test than a great institution used in this 
city thirty years ago. Premiums were offered for the best 
quality of milk, and the farmers and dairymen from all the 
country-side round about New York, came in with their milk 
pans, and set their milk for the judges to test and taste. The 
judges would not rely on their tasting faculties, preferring to 
employ them on liquids whose qualities they were more 
familiar with than milk. But they had a lactometer, an in- 
strument marked with degrees like a thermometer, and this 
was to sink into the milk, more or less according to the rich- 
ness, thickness, creaminess of the milk. That is, as milk 
yields cream, and cream is more solid than milk, these M wise 
men of Gotham,' whose fathers ''went to sea in a bowl," 



MlLJt AND WATER. 37* 

supposed that the milk which had the most cream in it, is of 
course the richest and best. The lactometer would there- 
fore sink only a little way into it, being buoyed up by the 
thickness of the liquid ; while in the lighter quality it would 
sink down freely to a deeper depth. On this principle the 
premiums were awarded. After it was all over, and the 
happy farmers and the disappointed ones had gone back to 
their cows and corn, it was discovered by some intermed- 
dling philosopher that cream rises to the top because it is 
lighter than the rest of the milk, and of course that the milk 
with most cream in it is lighter than milk with less cream, 
and the premiums had been given to the poorest milk, and 
the best had been condemned as the worst ! So much for 
the decision of judges who knew nothing of what they 
judge. Yet they were as wise as the New York lady who 
dismissed her milkman because, as she told him, " when the 
milk stood over night, a nasty yellow scum rose on the 
surface.'' 

But the tastes of city people have improved. The women 
generally know that the " nasty yellow scum," on the sur- 
face of milk, is cream, and the cream is the very cream of 
the milk. The progress of ideas, the march of knowledge 
and the improvement in the modes of education, are illus- 
trated by the following fact. A little girl in this city, 
received among her last Christmas toys, the present of a 
baby churn, holding about half a pint. Getting this quan- 
tity of milk she churned away steadily until she " made the 
butter come," and at tea the wonderful pat was displayed and 
eaten in triumph by the admiring house. So you see that in 
the city we are learning to do our own work, and if we can- 
not have good butter sent in, we will set the babes to make 
it, and we will keep our own cows too. 

Our Board of Health have been pursuing the milkmen 
with some small degree of vigor. Eight of them were 
arraigned under the law to prevent the adulteration of things 
sold. These milkmen are not those who drive about the 
streets in the morning, usually so early as to wake you up at 
an untimely hour, or so late as to make you wait half an 



372 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

hour after time for breakfast. Whenever did a milkman or 
a breadman come at the right time ? 

The breadmen are the more irregular of the two, and this 
reminds me of one in Philadelphia. He was, as usual, 
dashing madly through the streets when the celebrated Dr. 
Chapman was about to cross. The breadman saw the Doc- 
tor, halted his horse suddenly and let him pass. The Doc- 
tor bowed and said, " You are the best bred-mzxi in town." 

Milk-dealers keep the article in shops for sale to customers 
who call for it. They are supposed to have regular supplies 
from the country. Some of them do, But the milky way is 
a great mystery. It was proved upon a trial, not long since, 
that after the milk cans are put upon the rail cars up in the 
country, (how much water is put into the cans with the milk 
before, was not shown) the men on the cars help themselves 
to the milk at their pleasure, supplying the vacancy with 
water. On its arrival at the city, the cans are conveyed by 
wagon to the dealer, and on the way thither the driver takes 
out what he wants and fills up with water, which he carries 
in pails under the seat for the purpose, and finally the liquid 
reaches the shop of the retailer, who again waters it to suit 
his views of trade and duty to himself and customers. 

These last are the gentlemen, eight of whom were brought to 
trial on the charge of selling adulterated milk. One of them 
was arraigned and his was made a test case. The lactometer 
was the principal witness. Would it lie ? Could it be made 
to tell the truth? Its capacity and its credibility were 
challenged. Experts were called in and put on the stand. 
Now these experts are becoming a very important and dan- 
gerous set of men. Every man's life may be in the hands of 
experts. Is this your handwriting ? You say No, and up 
rises an expert and swears that he can tell to a dead certainty 
whether the handwriting is yours or not : he is an expert. 
Your testimony is of very little account, for though you may 
know, yet as you are not an expert and the other man is, you 
may find yourself in State prison for forgery because an 
expert knows more than you do. And men do not always 
know their own signature. Some years ago an excellent 



MILK AND WATER, 373 

Christian citizen was charged with forgery. The banker who 
accused him of forging his name, was handed in the court 
room, on the trial, a piece of paper with his own name on it, 
and he was asked if that was his signature. He said it was : 
examined it carefully and swore positively to it. Then three 
men rose up and made oath that one of their number, in the 
presence of the other two, wrote that signature on that table 
a few moments before, and did it to confound the banker. 
He acknowledged his error, was at once convinced that he 
had wrongfully accused his neighbor, withdrew the charge, 
paid the costs and sought to repair the injury he had done. 
But, if my memory be correct, the good man died from the 
effects of the injurious charge. 

But we neglect these milkmen. Experts proved that the 
lactometer was infallible as a test of the presence of water : 
the more water the deeper it would sink. It is made to 
stand at ioo degrees in ordinarily good milk : one Alderney 
cow's milk registered 112 and another 120. That was rich 
milk. Mr. Starr's cows, at Litchfield, gave milk so rich that, 
in pails 1 5 inches deep, the cream stood four inches thick. If 
the lactometer sinks below 100, it shows the presence of 
water. The milkman's milk on trial registered 80 : he was 
convicted and fined $100; the others owned up and were 
let off on paying $50 each. So the lactometer and the 
experts were sustained, and the wicked milk-dealers came to 
grief. 



374 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 



MY VINE: MY POOR VINE! 

The first house I ever owned was in Newark, N. J. With 
the house was a garden, and in the midst of the garden 
stood an arbor, and that arbor was covered by an Isabella 
grape vine, and of that vine is this story. 

As the vine was the crown of the garden, I employed an 
experienced vine dresser, at the proper time of the year, to 
prune it properly and put it in perfect order for the opening 
spring. A few days afterward, an amateur gardening friend, 
one who prided himself in knowing all about plants, from 
the cedars of Lebanon to Isabella grape vines, came to see 
me, and my new place. He was delighted; but as he ap- 
proached the central beauty, he remarked with great wis- 
dom : " This is a very fine vine, but you ought to have had 
it trimmed !" 

This was discouraging indeed : but for the humor of the 
thing, I said, " You know so much more of this than I, per- 
haps you would like to trim it ?" 

He sprang to the work, as if it were play, whipped out his 
jackknife, which he always carried to execute everything 
he could, and at it he went, cutting off all the wood he could 
find. 

Sure that my precious vine was spoiled, I hailed without 
further fear a visit from another friend and relative, who had 
great contempt for my knowledge of worldly affairs : we 
walked in the garden, and, entering the arbor, he said, ' You 
should have had this vine trimmed — you never did know 
enough to — " 

I checked him with, — " You always save me the trouble, 
wouldn't you just go over it now; here's a knife." He took 
it fondly and, with the aid of a step-ladder, the old gentle- 
man went through it, and left it as naked as Wolsey was 
when the king deserted him. Now my poor vine was 
certainly safe from further excision. But a week and an- 
other visitor came to my vineyard. He was from the north- 
ern part of New York, and did not realize the lateness of the 



MY VINE: MY POOR VINE! 375 

season : it was April with us in New Jersey ; he admired my 
new home, and when we came to the vine, so trim and clean 
and clear, I waited for his pleased expression ; but, to my 
dismay, he exclaimed * 

"You have forgotten to have it trimmed : it's a splendid 
vine : it's late to be sure, but not too late to trim it yet." 

Having given up all hope of fruit from it, after its previous 
mutilations, I was quite careless about its fate and remarked : 
44 Perhaps you would like to try your hand on it : here is an 
excellent knife." 

He seized it with evident pleasure, plunged in medias res 
instanter, and, in the course of thirty minutes, managed to 
amputate every bough of promise that had dared to make its 
appearance on the vine of my affections. The work of ruin 
was complete. The vine was barren that year. Next year 
perhaps a little better, but it never recovered the shock of 
those untimely wounds. My folly, in letting these quacks 
doctor my darling, was punished by its destruction. Often, 
when too late, I regretted that, for the sake of seeing to what 
length ignorance and self-conceit would go, I permitted these 
good friends to meddle with matters too high for them and, 
like the little foxes in the song of songs, to spoil my vine. 

Every man to his own business. Ne sutor ultra crepidam. 
Let the cobbler stick to his last. " Study to be quiet and to 
do your own business" is a divine command, and, like all in- 
structions from the same source, is full of common sense. 

The church and the world, religion and business, are dis- 
turbed and annoyed and sadly injured, like my garden, with 
amateurs, pretenders, quacks: men who have new and im- 
proved methods of doing what was well enough done before, 
but which they would do with patented processes peculiar 
to themselves, and a vast improvement upon everything that 
has gone before. My study is strewed with patent venti- 
lators. Every autumn a new man appears with a queer 
shaped instrumentality, and, casting his eyes upwards at my 
windows, he says : " I see you've got one of them old-fash- 
ioned ventilators into there : it 'taint no good, is it?" 

" No, it's good for nothing : better out than in." 



376 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

" Wall, now you see here's the thing to do it : I put one of 
these 'ere traps up to the top and tother into the bottom of 
the winder : and the wind comes whizzin in to one and goes 
out tother, and so keeps it fresh and kind o' breezy like all 
the time : 'spose you try 'em." 

I consent, and he goes at it with a will. He pulls out the 
old ones : puts in his : and the next fall, perhaps the next 
month, another man comes along with a new patent venti- 
lator and wants to try it. He tries it. It is very trying to 
me, but the pleasure of seeing the foolish experiments fail is 
the compensation. They are all equally bad. 

The same quackery succeeds in trade, in finance, in medi- 
cine, in the Church. We live in cycles, circles ; what things 
have been shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun. 
Yet the world moves. Progress is made because good begets 
good and truth is fruitful. Conservatism holds fast that 
which is good, and with it works onward to the overthrow 
of evil. Radicalism is too impatient, rushes ahead, generally 
knocks its head against the wall, and would dash its brains 
out, if it had any. Even the goose that laid. golden eggs, one 
a day, was less of a goose than the radical who killed her to 
get all the eggs at once. 

One of the best books might be made by writing the biog- 
raphy of defunct theories in science. Men have received as 
settled truths, vast systems of astronomy, chemistry and ge- 
ology, that are now exploded. Yet while those sciences were 
the faiths of the day, it was quite as much as a man's repu- 
tation was worth to teach otherwise. And to this day no 
man lives who knows what electricity is, or how the thing 
works. These facts ought to make men modest, self-dis- 
trusting, and backward about coming forward, when they 
don't know what they are about. 

" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," 

and many men are ready to try their hands at trimming 
other people's grape vines, when the regular vine dresser has 
already done his duty well. 

So in the Church, With the fullest, simplest and most 



WHITE AND YELLOW MEETING HOUSES. 377 

beautiful instructions, the Church goes on from age to age, 
the comfort and salvation of all who will rest under the 
shadow of her wings. And every now and then some new 
light arises, with a patent right for explaining the rules, and 
a new way of saving souls. I would let a man trim my vine 
if he really wanted to, whether he knew anything about it 
or not; but to work in the vineyard which the Lord has 
given me to keep, a man must be thoroughly furnished, 
and have the proofs of his skill, or he can't come in. 



THE WHITE AND THE YELLOW MEETING 
HOUSES. 

The Old White Meeting House, in Cambridge, N. Y., was 
the church of the regular line Presbyterians, of whom my 
father was the pastor. The Yellow Meeting House held the 
Scotch Presbyterians, of the sub-division known as Anti- 
Burghers, whose pastor was a noble son of Scotland, Alex- 
ander Bullions, D.D. He and my father were the warmest 
of friends six days in the week, yes, and seven, but the Jews 
and Samaritans had more dealings together than did these 
two friends and their people on the first day of the week. 
This bothered me when a boy, and it has not become a whit 
more intelligible since. 

Dr. Bullions and my father were splendid classical scholars, 
and they would spend long winter evenings over Greek 
verbs and Latin prosody, disputing each other with imper- 
turbable good nature, and making the low-roofed cottage 
ring with their uproarious laughter when one got the other 
fairly on the hip in a philological wrestle. They formed a 
club of four or five rural pundits, meeting once a week to 
read Latin and Greek and quarrel about it. Dr. Watts' 
dogs did not more delight to bark and bite, than these men 
did to get their teeth into one another on the pronunciation 
of a vowel or the inflection of a doubtful syllable. Dr. Mat. 
Stevenson was one of them : a physician and scholar. Also 



37B I RE N^ US LETTERS. 

Scotch. Very much set in his way. They were discussing 
the difference in meaning of gens and natio. Dr. S. stood 
out boldly against all the rest ; till one of them bluntly said 
to him, 

u You are the most obstinate man I ever did see." 

" I am not obstinate," replied Dr. S. " I always give up as 
soon as I am convinced" 

How many just such pliable people I have met since ! 
Sometimes I think we all have a touch of the same openness 
to conviction. But I was speaking of these ministers and 
their people. Into the mysteries of the diversities of the 
numerous Presbyterian bodies and souls, my studies in the 
refinements of ecclesiastical history were never carried so far 
as to enable me to mention them without reference to book. 
One of my associates in the office belonged to one of the 
minor sub-divisions of the Scotch churches, and whenever I 
have occasion to state the difference between Burgher and 
Anti-Burgher, Seceder, Associate, Reformed, Covenanters, 
Cameronians, etc., I ask him, he tells me, I write it, forget it, 
and ask him again the next time. But this I know, that no 
warmer friends ever lived than the pastors of those two 
Presbyterian churches, in the White and the Yellow meeting 
houses, albeit the views of the Scotch Doctor were such, or 
rather the rules of his kirk were such, that he and his people 
had no church fellowship with the pastor and people in the 
old White church. 

The Scotch minister was not half as set in the old way as 
his people. He was intensely Scotch in his brogue, so much 
so that it was hard for me to understand him when, at the 
school examinations, he would call out, " Wull, mawster 
Sawm, wot part o' verb is thot ?" But he was so full of 
genial good humor, so social in his nature, liberal, learned, 
large-hearted, loving, that he could not be kept in the strait 
jacket of any school but that of the one Master. His people 
quarrelled about the psalm singing : some claimed that only 
one line should be given out at a time, and others demand- 
ing that two should be read and then sung. He pre- 
vailed with the Presbytery to tell them it was of no impor- 



WHITE AND YELLOW MEETING HOUSES. 379 

tance either way. But more serious was the trouble when 
he preached before the Bible Society immediately after one 
of the hymns of the late Isaac Watts had been sung ! For 
this he was accused, as of a crime, and brought before the 
judges. He asked " how long a time should elapse, after a 
hymn had been sung, before it would be fit for him to preach 
in the same house." I forget what was the result of this dis- 
cussion. But one thing led to another and another, until 
this righteous old man was for a season laid under an inter- 
dict, so that his lips were sealed that he might not preach 
the gospel he loved. He was afterwards released, and he died 
in the triumphs of faith. 

It was in the year 1746, about 130 years ago, that the Anti- 
Burghers, to whom Dr. Bullions belonged, had their quarrel 
with the Burghers, and the one body became two with these 
respective names. They split on a clause in the oath re- 
quired to be taken by the freemen of certain boroughs, and 
the inhabitants being called burgesses, those who were willing 
to take the oath were called Burghers, and those who 
refused were called Anti-Burghers. The oath expressed 
" their hearty allowance of the true religion at present pro- 
fessed within the realm, and authorized by the laws thereof/' 

It was contended that the words " true religion at present 
professed" was an admission that the Established Church 
was the true religion, and therefore the one party would not 
take the oath. The contest was very fierce, and went into 
churches, hamlets, and houses. Friendships, old and warm, 
went out before the storm that swept over the country. 
Many interesting stories of the times are handed down. 

Johnny Morten, a keen Burgher, and Andrew Gebbie, a 
decided Anti-Burgher, both lived in the same house, but at 
opposite ends, and it was the bargain that each should keep 
his own side of the house well thatched. When the dispute 
about the principles of their kirks, and especially the offen- 
sive clause in the oath, grew hot, the two neighbors ceased to 
speak to each other. But one day they happened to be on 
the roof at the same time, each repairing the thatch in the 
slope of the roof on his own side, and when they had worked 



300 IRENMUS LETTERS, 

up to the top, there they were — face to face. They couldn't 
flee, so at last Andrew took off his cap and, scratching his 
head, said, " Johnnie, you and me, I think, hae been very 
foolish to dispute, as we hae done, concerning Christ's will 
about our kirks, until we hae clean forgot His will about 
ourselves ; and we hae fought sae bitterly for what we ca' the 
truth, that it has ended in spite. Whatever's wrang, it's per- 
fectly certain that it never can be right to be uncivil, 
unneighborly, unkind, in fac, tae hate ane anither. Na, na, 
that's the deevil's wark, and no God's. Noo, it strikes me 
that maybe it's wi' the kirk as wi' this house; ye're working 
on ae side and me on the t'ither, but if we only do our wark 
weel, we will meet at the tap at last. Gie's your han', auld 
neighbor !" And so they shook han', and were the best 
o' freens ever after. 

It did not remain for Dr. Bullions and my father to " meet 
at the top" before they were one in heart, soul and mind. 
They loved at first sight, and so much the more so as they 
saw the day approaching when they would sit down in the 
same General Assembly and Church of the first-born, whose 
names are written in heaven. Yet I have often thought of 
the solid comfort those two pastors now take in the Church 
on high, where the wicked, and the ignorant and bigoted and 
unreasonable, cease from troubling, and the weary sons of 
thunder are at rest. They sing together the song of Moses 
and the Lamb, and whether David wrote it, or Watts made 
a version of it, or Rouse metred it, or Sternhold and Hop- 
kins, or Tate and Brady, or whether they read two lines and 
sing, or only one, I know not, or what "the players on instru- 
ments who shall be there" will have to play on, is all unre- 
vealed unless the harps and the trumpets are to be for the 
use of the saints ; but of this I am sure, that they two — those 
glorious old pastors of the White and the Yellow churches, 
now enjoy 

" The song of them that triumph, 
The shout of them that feast, 
And they who with their Leader 



THE MEANEST WOMAN IN NEW YORK. 381 

Have conquered in the fight, 
Forever, and forever 
Are clad in robes of white. 

O holy placid harp notes 
Of that eternal hymn !" 

Can you tell me what is the use of waiting till we meet at 
the top before we, who are to be one up there, shall be one ? 
Let us try it on among those who are of one name, who not 
only have the same Bible, but have the same creeds and 
catechisms. Surely there is no good reason why these 
Presbyterians of many subordinate names, yet all one in the 
belief of the truth, should not be so related or confederated 
as to be in substance one, having members indeed, but really 
and truly one for the edifying of the body of Christ. Some 
thirty or forty of these limbs are now scattered over the 
world, waiting for the manifestation of some power to draw 
them to their several places, so that all, being fitly compacted 
together, may form a stately temple to the glory of its Head 
and King. There is no reason for their present dismember- 
ment that will have any force or value in the air of heaven. 
The White and the Yellow meeting houses will be of the 
same color in the shine of the Lamb who is the light of the 
upper sky. 



THE MEANEST WOMAN IN NEW YORK. 

She lives in a fashionable quarter of the town. And this 
is what she did and does. In the name of charity she gave 
out some dress-making to the inmates of one of the institu- 
tions for reforming and saving women supposed to be lost. 
When the work was done, and well done, the fashionable 
and charitable lady was not ready to pay the bill, which 
amounted to the enormous sum of $12. The same work, if 
it had been done at a fashionable dress-maker's, would have 
cost her $25, perhaps $50. She had no complaint to make 



382 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

of the manner in which the work was done ; but she haggled 
about the price, and, as she gave out the work in charity, 
she thought, probably, that the charity should be extended 
to her and not to the poor sewing woman who had earned 
the money. One month passed away, and another, and six 
more, while this wealthy and charitable woman, with one 
excuse and another, put off paying the poor girl who was 
seeking to earn an honest living and turn from her evil ways. 
But she could not get her hard-earned money from this lady 
patroness. Finally, in despair, she had recourse to the law, 
by the aid of an agency, and the prospect of exposure, in the 
character of a fraud, brought the lady to terms and she paid 
the full amount ! 

And I have styled her the meanest woman in New York. 
If any one knows of meaner men or women than they are 
who defraud in the name of charity, who do wickedness 
under the pretence of benevolence, let them mention the 
facts and I will modify the opinion. Further : women, as a 
general thing, are so much better than men, more sympa- 
thetic, charitable and liberal, that a business like this is 
meaner in a woman than it would be in those hard old 
tyrants called men. When a pious woman of fashion, a 
leader perhaps in the benevolent operations of the church, 
first directress of this society, and manageress of that, and 
treasurer of another ; who thinks nothing of paying $500 for 
a dress for one evening's wear, and, to be very charitable, 
employs a poor fallen woman struggling with poverty and 
honesty, and then neglects to pay her wages, she deserves to 
be labelled as among the meanest of her sex. Her standing 
in the church and society only increases her meanness, and 
draws upon her the aggravated contempt of all rightminded 
ladies. 

There is in our city a society, with whose works I have 
been conversant for ten or a dozen years past, whose records 
are dark with stories of such wrongs as this. It is a society 
so humble in its sphere and so righteous in its purposes ; so 
still and yet so strong, founded in the two great virtues that 
illustrate the divine character, and therefore that of the best 



THE MEANEST WOMAN IN NEW YORK. 3&3 

of human character, — the virtues of justice and mercy, — that 
it commends itself to the hearty sympathy and support of 
the wise and good. Its object is to " Protect Working 
Women" in their rights to what they earn : finding employ- 
ment for them, and seeing that their wages are paid accord- 
ing to agreement. This " Protective Union" has its office at 
No. 38 Bleecker street, just out of Broadway. If you will 
bear with me, I will tell you a little more of the good it does 
by revealing, punishing and preventing the oppression of the 
poor by the rich and mean. Honest pay for honest work is 
its motto. It tells us that the petty frauds imposed on igno- 
rant, helpless, industrious working women, are innumerable. 
To expose such frauds and save the suffering from greater 
suffering, the society hears their complaints, uses the gentle 
argument of reason and compassion, and when these fail, 
then the society puts forth the arm of the law, takes by the 
throat the fashionable lady who defrauds the poor of her 
wages, and says, in that persuasive language which law only 
uses, "Pay her what thou owest." It is beautiful to observe 
how quickly a mean rich women listens to the dulcet voice 
of a legal summons. " Really, I declare now, do excuse me, 
but I had forgotten all about it : O yes, that little bill ; yes, 
yes : let me see, ten dollars, was it ? Certainly." 

" And the costs, madam." 

" Costs ? costs? what costs?" says the lady, " I thought it 
cost $10." 

"Yes, but the costs of the proceedings : the writ, the ser- 
vice, the fees, you see: $5.65: and the interest on the bill, 
what's been a running a year now and a little more : it 
amounts to $16.40." 

"Well, I will send it around in the course of a day or two." 

" You had better pay it now and save further costs : an 
execution will — " 

" Execution ! you don't mean anybody's going to be 
hung?" 

" No, no : an execution is a writ to be served on your 
goods and chattels, to sell 'em, and get the money to satisfy 
this 'ere little bill : guess you'd better pay it now." 



384 IREN^EUS LETTERS, 

And so the lady squirms a while longer and finally pays 
the bill : the poor sewing woman gets her pay in full ; the 
society gets its costs ; and the lady gets a lesson. If she 
tells of it, so much the better, for the lesson is useful to all 
who are in the habit of defrauding the hireling of his wages 
or keeping back that which is due to such as have none to 
help them. In one year, the last year, the society collected 
unpaid lawful wages for poor women, amounting to $2,544.31, 
in average sums of about $3.50. It has also, in the last seven 
years, lent to poor women in small sums to the amount of 
$2,145.45, and has been repaid by them every cent except 
about $25 still due ! It has recovered for these women their 
wages due and refused, $16,411.29, and this is but a fraction 
of what it has secured for its helpless people in making em- 
ployers faithful to their agreements, for fear of being put 
through a course of legal suasion. 

The most common and severest form of swindling poor 
women, is that pursued by the agents of inferior sewing 
machines : the old and honorable companies never resort to 
such measures : but a set of sharpers may trade even in the 
best machines, hiring them out to women who are to pay 
$5.00 a month for the use of them, and to own the machine 
when its price, a very high price, has been paid in these 
instalments. In case of default for a single month, the agent 
seizes the machine, declares the payments forfeited, carries 
it off, and the poor woman is helpless. The society has 
largely broken up this iniquity, and the best companies now 
make such liberal arrangements with their machines, that 
swindlers stand a poor chance of making anything by their 
operations. 

The society sends its officers to reason with employers, in 
behalf ot complaining women, and seeks out the truth, which 
is not always on the side of the complaint. It often succeeds 
without using pressure. But when soft words fail, it uses 
force. Mary Thompson was employed to make a bridal 
dress, and when the wedding day came, $30 were still due to 
Mary for her hard work : but she couldn't get it. The bride 
was married in the dress for the making of which the poor 



THE GOOD DR. MUHLENBERG. 3 8 5 

sewing woman was not paid; and the happy husband was 
not so happy when the bill was soon afterwards presented 
to him, with $14.50 costs added to it. His bride was dearer 
to him than he had ever thought. It is pleasant also to 
hear that a lawyer of our city had a taste of the excellence 
of his own profession, by being sued for the wages of a gov- 
erness. Being himself a lawyer he managed to stave off the 
payment of $17.75 until the costs carried up the bill to 
$32.25, and then he had to pay it all. Verdict, served him 
right. 

In many ways besides these, this wise and kind society 
wields its power for good to those who want it most. It 
greatly needs pecuniary aid to make it more useful. And 
they who give even a cup of cold water to those who are 
laboring in such a blessed work, shall in no wise fail of their 
reward. 



THE GOOD DR. MUHLENBERG. 

" I would not live alway." 

A life-like portrait of the blessed old man, in the volume by 
Sister Anne Ayres, brings him back as to me he looked, one 
winter morning, when he came down early and climbed into 
my fifth-story office. He was qu.'ie out of breath when he 
reached the height, and I waited with some anxiety to know 
why, for the first time, he had wound his way up the cork- 
screw stairway. Presently he spoke, with a soft, sweet voice, 
his face beaming with human love and heavenly grace — a 
saint in every line : 

"Good Friday is at hand, and as I was putting on my 
clothes this morning I said to myself, ' What a happy thing 
it would be if all the churches, of every Christian name, would 
observe it as a day of fasting and prayer ; 1 will go down to 
my friend at the Observer office and see if he will favor the 
idea, and I will take his response as an indication of Provi- 
dence as to the expediency of making the suggestion public.'" 



386 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

When I assured him of my cordial concurrence in the 
thought and our willingness to second it publicly, and to 
strive earnestly to make the proposal universally acceptable, 
the good man wept for joy, gave audible thanks to God, and 
I thought he would embrace me, so great was his surprise 
and del ight. 

" Yes," he added, " I confess it. I was afraid you would 
not help me." 

From that time onward he was free to speak with me in 
regard to the good works to which his life was devoted, and 
I learned to love and revere him more and more while he 
lived. 

He is (not was, for such as he live long after they are 
buried) a living illustration of the fact that a man may be in 
the world and not of it; above it while he is in it : a godly 
man of action and business as well as of prayer and faith. In 
him was no guile. He would suffer wrong sooner than do 
wrong. He was not original ; he had a pattern, and that pat- 
tern was Christ, 

The volume gives his early life, and shows the steps by which 
he walked from the Lutheran Church, in which he was bap- 
tized, to the Episcopal, where he was confirmed ; after the 
minister, Mr. Kemper, assured him that "regeneration does 
not mean a change of heart." 

Then he resolved to give up going to the theatre, of which 
he was rather fond, considering it one of " the pomps and 
vanities of the world ' that he had vowed to renounce. Of 
his ministry in this city, his wonderful devotedness to the 
sick and suffering, his fatherhood of St. Luke's Hospital, and 
of the homes at St. Johnland on Long Island, the book 
before me is a graphic, life-like story, every page the record 
of some good deed done, the whole a record that angels 
might read with wonder, love and praise. 

Dr. Muhlenberg was not one of your softly, untempered, 
half-baked men, afraid to speak out and say what he felt. 
He went one day to the office of a rich friend to ask him, as 
landlord, to release a poor woman from her rent, which was 
due. Failing, he begged for a small donation for the widow, 



THE GOOD DR. MUHLENBERG. 3 8 7 

which was also refused. Then he berated his friend in good 
set terms, adding : " I would rather take my chance for hea- 
ven with the meanest beggar in New York than with you." 
It gratifies one's depravity to know that the very best men do 
and say things that we are chided for, when human nature 
asserts itself in honest rebuke of wrong. 

When the elegant church of St. Thomas was going up, 
south of St. Luke's Hospital, Dr. Muhlenberg sought to have 
the bells dispensed with, for fear they would disturb the 
patients in their sufferings. But he failed, and the bells went 
up, and made their chimes, to the good man's great annoyance. 
Some years afterwards the Fifth avenue Presbyterian church 
began to rise on the north side of the Hospital, and nearer to 
it than St. Thomas. Again the Dr. was full of fears for his 
suffering patients, and he went to Dr. John Hall, the pastor, to 
pour out his feelings. He began very gently by congratulat- 
ing him on the progress of the new building, and then 
remarked, as if incidentally : 

" And I suppose you will be soon having a bell in the new 
tower." 

" No," said Dr. Hall, " we feared it might disturb the patients 
in your Hospital, and we have concluded not to have a bell." 

The good old man was completely taken aback, and 
exclaimed : 

" Oh, you are more considerate than my own people." 

I would not make a private party, however pleasant, dis- 
tinguished and memorable, the subject of public remark, but 
finding a reference to it here, I may. It was one of those 
episodes in life that old men enjoy with a flavor which youth 
does not know. For old age has its pleasures, as Cicero and 
other wise and great men have found. Of this venerable 
company I was made one, on account of my youth, as the 
kind and clever note of invitation from the accomplished host 
— himself a host — very neatly intimated. Mr. Charles H. 
Russell sat by the side of Dr. Adams. Dr. Muhlenberg, Mr. 
W. C. Bryant, Mr. James Brown, Mr. Peter Cooper, Dr. Cal- 
houn, of goodly Lebanon, and one more, composed the com- 
pany. 



388 IRENsEUS LETTERS. 

Dr. Adams requested Dr. Muhlenberg to ask the blessing. 
The patriarch complied in these rhythmical words : 

1 ' Solemn thanks be our grace, for the years that are past, 
With their blessings untold, and though this be our last, 
Yet, joyful our trust that through Christ 'twill be given, 
All here meet again, at his table in heaven." 

It was very natural that we should pass from this brief 
poem and prayer to others by the same author, and I asked 
Dr. Muhlenberg for the correct reading of a line in his cele- 
brated hymn, — 

" I would not live alway." 

It is sometimes printed "the few lund mornings," and again, 
" the few lurid mornings." " Which of these, Dr., is the true 
reading?" 

" Either or neither," he replied with some spirit. " I do 
not believe in the hymn : it does not express the better feel- 
ings of the saint, and I would not write it now." 

This was a surprise to me, but I was glad to hear him say 
so. 

Mr. Bryant took a very cheerful view of old age, and dis- 
claimed any feelings of depression or infirmity with the 
advance of life. When some pleasantry enlivened the table, 
Mr. Brown, who sat next to me, and was somewhat hard of 
hearing, looked up deploringly, and said : 

"You don't know how much I lose by being deaf." 

"Aye, Mr. Brown," I replied, "and/<?# don't know how 
much you gain !" 

Of those six guests, four have put on immortality. Dr. 
Calhoun died a few months afterwards. Mr. James Brown 
followed, hand longo zntervallo. Then Dr. Muhlenberg slept 
with his beloved in St. Johnland. Mr. Bryant had his wish 
fulfilled in being buried in June among his own flowers in 
Roslyn. 

Mr. Peter Cooper I met at the De Lesseps dinner the other 
night, and his seat was next to mine. It must be wisdom, 
not age, that puts me with these venerable men. He said to 



INTERCOURSE WITH DR. ADAMS. 389 

me : " I am ninety years old, and do not feel the effects of 
age." 

Wonderful old man : useful and honored to the last : un- 
doubtedly the "first citizen" now. 

Dr. Muhlenberg loved Dr. Adams tenderly, which is not re- 
markable ; but I find in this volume an observation by Dr. A. 
that is characteristic of both him and his friend. Dr. Adams 
says: 

11 More than once I have said to my family, when returning from some 
interview with him, in which he had honored me with a kiss, that I felt as if 
the Apostle John had embraced me and repeated in my ear some words 
which had been whispered to him by the Master on whose bosom he had 
leaned at the supper." 

When Dr. Muhlenberg rested from his labors, and was not, 
for God took him, we fondly trusted that some one, in his 
spirit and power, would take up the work he left. Others do 
perpetuate the useful charities he founded. But where is the 
living presence of the model saint and pastor and friend? 
Who among us now sanctifies the city by a life of supernal 
beauty in its mephitic atmosphere ? 

Dr. Muhlenberg left a hoarded heap of gold behind him ! 
Two gold pieces — $40, in all — this was his savings to pay for 
his burial ! All that he had, all that he received, all that he 
was, he gave to Christ and his friends while living, and died 
leaving not enough to pay the expenses of his funeral. 



INTERCOURSE WITH DR. ADAMS. 

Now that the first gush of public sorrow has subsided, and 
others have said what was in their hearts of our departed 
friend and elder brother — the late Rev. Dr. Wm. Adams — 
it may not be presuming if another hand should bring a hum- 
ble tribute for his tomb. 

When he contemplated the resignation of his pastoral 
charge on Madison Square, to accept the Presidency of the 



39° IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

Theological Seminary, he was doubtful as to the line of his 
duty, and sent for friends to counsel on the great and difficult 
question. It was not for me to advise such a man ; but when 
he would have an opinion, I could only say : " It is quite 
probable that you are called of God to be the President of 
the Seminary, but it is not necessary that you retire from the 
Madison Square pulpit. A colleague or assistant may supply 
your lack of service, when you assume other labors : but such 
a life as yours will be rounded and complete when you die in 
the highest office on earth — a Christian pastor." 

He resigned from a sense of duty to the people, when he 
decided to take the Chair, and it is to be presumed he did 
not regret the decision. With the Apostle he could always 
say, " This one thing I do ;" and he often spoke, in private, 
to me in terms of high commendation of those men who spend 
their strength and time in the work to which they are called, 
declining to divert their minds or employ their powers in 
extra labors, however useful and important they might be. 

He was invited to take part in the Centennial Celebration 
of the Battle of Lexington, where the first blow of the Ameri- 
can Revolution was struck, and the shot was fired that was 
heard around the world. He invited me to go with him, to 
be the guest of his brother-in-law, Mr. Magoon, in Medford, 
near to Lexington. It so happened that I had at that time 
the pistol from which that shot was fired : the pistol that 
Major Pitcairn discharged when he gave the first order to 
British soldiers to fire on the Americans. Armed with this 
pistol and its twin, I joined Dr. Adams and went to the bat- 
tle-field. But there was no fighting now. Those three days 
of social life with him and his friends were ideal days. He 
loved to take me to houses and hills and churches in that 
region where his youth and his young ministry were spent : 
where he first loved and was married : he lived over the 
scenes of early manhood, when life was all before him and 
hopes of usefulness were high. He was young again. With 
his children and theirs around him, and a thousand sweet 
associations, every moment his loving nature awoke as in the 
morning of spring, and he was fresh, buoyant and cheerful, as 



INTERCOURSE WITH DR. ADAMS, 39 1 

if he were on the verge of thirty and not of three score and 
ten. 

We were very desirous to have him go to Edinburgh to the 
General Council in 1877, and it was with the greatest reluct- 
ance that he yielded to the pressing solicitations of his breth- 
ren. He did not like to go away from home. And when 
he reached London he was thoroughly homesick. He came 
from the hotel where he was in the midst of friends, and 
sought for rooms in the private lodgings I was enjoying. 
Here he met my daughters, and when he gave them each a 
paternal kiss, he said, " There, that's the first thing like home 
I have had since I came away." He said he longed to go 
back, and his eyes were full of tears as he spoke. It was 
wonderful to see a stately, dignified, elegant old man, full of 
honors and friends, whom every one was proud to welcome 
and entertain, so child-like and simple, so full of affection for 
those he had left behind, that his only care now was to get 
back again as soon as he could. 

In Edinburgh it was my lot to be attacked with illness at 
the house of my kind friend, Dr. Blaikie. The anxiety of 
Dr. Adams, his sympathy, his tenderness, his attentions, 
were those of an elder brother or parent. He has told me 
since that his fears were great that I would not recover. 
This apprehension was the result of his own great depression 
of spirits, for it was not shared by any one else. But it 
brought out the exceeding love of his heart, his overflowing 
sympathy, and it endeared him to me more tenderly than 
ever. How proud of him we all were at that great Council 
of men from all lands ! If there was one in that assembly of 
divines, of loftier and nobler mien than Dr. Adams, I did not 
see him. 

Some days after the Council dissolved, I was travelling 
from London to Folkestone, on my way to Paris. Into the 
same compartment of the rail-car came an English gentle- 
man, whose servant in livery stowed away his travel-impedi- 
ments and retired. The stranger, a fine-looking man, of 
courtly manners and address, very soon began to converse 
with me in the manner said to be peculiar to my countrymen. 



39 2 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

He put questions to me. Having ascertained that I was an 
American traveller, and from New York, he said to me : 

" Are you acquainted with the Rev. Dr. Adams ?" 

When he learned that Dr. A. was a valued friend of mine, 
he went on to say : 

" What a splendid specimen of the Christian gentleman he 
is. I had the pleasure of meeting him in London but a few 
days ago, and to present him to Mr. Gladstone, who was 
charmed with him, and expressed to me privately his admira- 
tion of the American scholar and divine." 

I did not learn my travelling companion's name, until I 
related the incident to Dr. Adams, who recalled him at once. 

When the appeal came to Christians in America to send 
a deputation to the Emperor of Russia to ask liberty of wor- 
ship for dissenters in the Baltic provinces of his empire, we 
held a meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, and it was easily 
resolved that such a deputation was to be desired, but as the 
men must go at their own charges, over the ocean and the 
continent, where were the men to be found ? In the silence 
that ensued, Dr. Adams came across the room and whispered 
in my ear, " I will go." I presume it was the only time he 
ever nominated himself. But the service was not one to be 
sought, and volunteers were not to be found. He was 
appointed at once : others followed : the deputation was 
filled : it went on its mission, and God gave it great success. 

His benevolence was only equalled by his facility for lead- 
ing others to be generous. They relied so justly on his judg- 
ment that they gave with confidence and pleasure when he 
endorsed the object. And the amounts of money given by 
his friends to charitable objects at his indication, can never 
now be added up ; but, if they could, the sum would be enor- 
mous and astonishing. A foreign missionary lost the sum 
of $3,000, and Dr. Adams said to me : " Let us make it up to 
him for the benefit of his children. You raise one thousand, 
and I will raise two." He easily got his before I got mine, 
but it was all obtained, and is now bearing fruit. 

I am very sorry that I cannot lay my hand on his playful 
note, in February, 1876, asking me to come and dine with 



INTERCOURSE WITH DR. ADAMS. 393 

some young friends and help to keep them in order. Among 
the guests at that memorable dinner, there was no one, ex- 
cept Dr. Calhoun, missionary from Mount Lebanon, and my- 
self, less than four score years of age. Four of them pre- 
ceded Dr. Adams to the Eternal state. With what graceful 
dignity, charming simplicity and ease, he sat at the head of 
his hospitable table on that occasion : drawing each one out 
according to his measure and manner, and filling up every 
pause with his own ready anecdote and reminiscence. 

Only last May I received from Dr. Adams a letter answer- 
ing some inquiries in which he writes of Dr. Muhlenberg and 
the dinner to which reference is made above. He says : 

11 I was expecting a visit at that time from a relative in Connecticut, more 
than ninety years of age, who, at this very time, is more elastic than I am. 

" It so happened that a few days before I had received a very pleasant let- 
ter from the late Richard H. Dana, then past 90, containing a very pleasant 
message for Bryant, so that I played the part of hyphen between the two 
great poets. 

" I have been reading this evening the life of Dr. Muhlenberg, and have 
been melted into tenderness by many of its incidents. He was a veritable 
saint, with nothing of asceticism about him, he knew the greatness and the 
blessedness of self -subjection for the good of others. He was truly catholic 
in spirit, while cordially attached to his own church. His taste was grati- 
fied by its forms of worship and by the right observance of its Calendar. 
He left his ' ideal of representative communion' as a legacy with me and — 

, to be carried into execution, and I am reproached when looking 

upon his sweet and beautiful face, because I have been forgetful of the 
trust ! More of this hereafter. 

14 1 hope I shall be made better by my renewed intercourse with Dr. Muh- 
lenberg in the pages of this work. " Cordially yours, 

"W. Adams." 



After Dr. Adams had retired from the pulpit, and his suc- 
cessor was settled, I made a sketch, beginning with this illus- 
tration : " If you would know what space you fill in the 
world, thread a cambric needle, drop the needle into the sea, 
draw it out again, and seethe hole that is left. That's you." 

The next week after the notice was in print, he met me 
with his bright and loving smile and said : 44 1 get letters 



394 IRE N^, US LETTERS, 

telling me ' I am only a cambric needle in the water, after 
all.' " 

Ah me! The simile now seems worse than a mockery. 
The City, the Seminary, the Church at large, and Dr. Adams 
not there. The vacancy is great. It will be years many 
before it is filled. Israel has chariots and horsemen, but 
where is the man like him who stood at the head of the host ? 



THE LATE DR. S. H. COX. 

One of the most brilliant intellects of the American pul- 
pit passed into another sky when Dr. Cox was glorified. 
More learned men, with more logical, and far more nicely bal- 
anced minds, more useful ministers and leaders, have lived 
in his day. But we have had no one with his blazing genius, 
bold and dazzling eloquence, range of imagination, fertility 
of illustration, astonishing memory, exuberant wit, rapid as- 
sociation of ideas, stores of facts and words from classic 
authors, and the faculty of expression that combined the 
sturdy, grotesque eccentricities of Carlyle with the flow and 
beauty of Macaulay. 

A meteor streams across the sky, and for a brief moment 
we rejoice in its light ; its beauty and brilliancy disappear, 
and the stars shine on steadily in their orbits. It is sad to 
know that so little of what Dr. Cox said remains on the 
printed page or in the memories of those who survive him. 
He did not write as he spoke. He would have failed as an 
author. No reporting did justice to his rhetoric, which, 
transcending all rules, was a law unto itself, blinding the 
eyes and ravishing the ears of his hearers. 

When he was told that Caleb Cotton had said, "Were it 
not for his Coxisms, Dr. Cox would be a great man," Dr. 
Cox answered, "Yes, he might have been Caleb Cotton." 
He did have his Coxisms. They were marked peculiarities 
of verbal utterances, by which he was distinguished from all 



v 



MEMORIES OE DR. SAMUEL HANSON COX. 395 

the preachers of his time. Having a slight impediment in 
his speech, which made him hesitate on certain letters, he 
selected instinctively words with such initials as he could 
utter readily, and this brought to his lips words and phrases 
that startled by their novelty, size, and immense fitness to 
convey the idea; words that no mortal man but Dr. Cox or 
Thomas Carlyle would have invented for the place. 

The Latin and Greek languages were so familiar that he 
garnished his discourse with their words, to the astonish- 
ment of the people and the bewilderment of the unlearned. 

A British peasant said to his new pastor ; " You don't give 
us any Latin, as our old minister did." 

•' No, I do not, for I did not suppose you understood 
Latin." 

"We don't, sir; but we pays for the oest, and we've a 
right to the best." 

Dr. Cox's people could make no complaint of him on that 
score. Who ever heard him make a platform speech with- 
out the E Pluribus Unurn ? 

I was by his side on the platform when he was Moderator 
of the New School Presbyterian General Assembly in Phil- 
adelphia. He was offering the prayer in the morning, and 
in the midst of it he said : " O Lord Jesus Christ, thou art 
the ne plus ultra of our desire, the sine qua non of our faith, 
and the ultima thule of our hope." 

Yet so natural to him was this form of expression, that he 
had no recollection of it afterwards. His friend, Dr. E. F. 
Hatfield, was by his side also, and remembers the remark- 
able words. 

It was in this same Assembly that a member from Ohio 
cast reflections, in debate, on Decorated Divines, when Dr. 
Cox called him to order, remarking, with gentle humor : 
" The brother should not speak disrespectfully of Doctors of 
Divinity ; he does not know what he may come to himself." 

When Williams College made Mr. Cox Dr. Cox, he decli- 
ned the Degree in a characteristic letter to The New 
York Observer, ridiculing the title and condemning the dis- 
tinction. My predecessor, Sidney E. Morse, published the 



39 6 IRENJEUS LETTERS. 

letter, of two solid columns. That is the letter in which 
occurs the phrase " semi-lunar fardels/' meaning D.D., the 
resemblance of the letter D to a half moon suggesting this 
play. But by-and-by Dr. Cox thought better of it, and was 
then heartily sorry that he ever wrote the foolish letter. 
But, what is even more remarkable, he blamed Mr. Morse 
for printing the letter, saying that he (Mr. M.) ought "to 
have had sense enough to decline its publication." Mr. 
Morse often laughed with me over the eccentricity of Dr, 
Cox's mind in that matter. 

His memory held whole pages and volumes of poetry and 
prose, which he could recite with elegance and correctness, 
astonishing and delighting the favored hearer. Cowper's 
Task, Scott's Marmion, and Milton were favorites. His 
memory of dates and names appeared conspicuously in his 
lectures on Biblical Chronology, and the way in which he 
handled " Tiglath Pilezer" and his contemporaries would 
put the modern lecturer to confusion if he were to attempt 
an imitation. I asked him to come over from Brooklyn to 
lecture in a course I was conducting, but he refused point 
blank, because when he had gone on a former occasion the 
people did not attend ! I assured him there would be no 
lack of hearers, and he finally yielded to my gentle blandish- 
ments. We walked together to the church where he was to 
speak, going early to put up some maps for illustration. 
Though it was half an hour before the time to begin, we met 
thousands coming away, and the vestry and aisles were so 
packed that we could scarcely get in. As we were strug- 
gling up, he said to me, " This lecture has been well primed." 
To which I, " And it vj'iW go off well too." And it did. He 
discoursed on Babylon. Thirty-five years have passed since 
that night, but the grandeur of the scene, those hanging gar- 
dens, the palaces, streets and battlements of Babylon the 
Great rise now in lustrous glory on the memory. 

How much I do regret that my dear friend, Dr. Adams, 
whose grave is not yet grass-grown, did not comply with 
my request to write out the introduction, which he often 
related in company, to the speech of Dr. Cox in Exeter 



MEMORIES OF DR. SAMUEL HANSON COX. 397 

Hall when he there represented the American Bible Soci- 
ety, before the British and Foreign. Dr. Adams knew it 
word for word, and that it is in print I do not know. Dr. 
Cox arrived in London and in Exeter Hall after the 
meeting was begun, and a tirade against America greeted 
him as he entered. As the speaker sat down, Dr. Cox was 
announced as the delegate from the American Society. 
The terrible denunciation just delivered had excited the in- 
dignation of the audience, and Dr. Cox was received with 
respectful coldness. But his splendid figure, his gallant, 
courteous, commanding presence, his irresistible smile, 
lightened instantly the gloom of the hall, and conciliated 
the audience. He said something like this : 

11 My Lord, twenty days ago I was taken by the tug Her- 
cules from the quay in New York to the good ship Samson, 
lying in the stream — thus, my lord, going from strength to 
strength — from mythology to Scripture — by the good hand of 
the Lord I was brought to your shores just in time to reach 
this house, and to enter in the midst of the burning denuncia- 
tions of my beloved country that have fallen from the lips of 
the gentleman who just sat down. He has reproached that 
country for the existence of slavery, which I abhor as much 
as he. But he did not tell you, my lord, that when we re- 
volted from your government, one of the reasons alleged 
was the fact that your king had forced that odious institu- 
tion upon us in spite of our remonstrances, and that the 
original sin rests with you and your fathers." [Having 
adduced the well-known facts of history to prove this 
position, he continued] : " And now, my lord, instead of 
indulging in mutual reproaches, I propose that the gentle- 
man shall be Shem and I will be Japheth, and taking the 
mantle of charity, we will walk backward and cover the 
nakedness of our common father." 

The effect was instantaneous and overwhelming. The day 
was won. And a more popular orator than Dr. Cox was 
not heard during the anniversaries. 

The great picture that was made to represent the for- 
mation of the Evangelical Alliance in London in 1846 has ? 



39 8 IREN^EUS LETTERS. 

as its central figure, the person of Dr. Cox addressing the 
Assembly. His speech on that occasion is considered by 
those who heard it as the greatest of his whole life. Much 
opposition was made by the European delegates to the in- 
sertion of the doctrine of future punishment into the plat- 
form then forming. The Americans, insisted upon its intro- 
duction. Dr. Cox was selected by them to make the speech 
in defence of their views. He spoke and conquered. Be- 
fore his exhibition of the revelation of God's will in his 
word, his vindication of the faith of the saints, and his 
vivid illustrations of the harmony and relations of the 
several parts of the evangelical system, the fears and unbe- 
lief of good men went down out of sight, while the glory of 
the Lord rose upon the minds and hearts of the Council. 
It was a triumph of truth to be held in everlasting remem- 
brance. 

But not in sacred eloquence only was Dr. Cox illustrious. 
His reading was encyclical, his mind cyclopedic, his tongue 
fluent, mellifluous and tireless. Tap him on any subject, 
and the stream came bright, sparkling, refreshing, like a 
mountain torrent, or a meadow rivulet, or a deep, broad, 
majestic river, filling the listener with joy, often with amaze- 
ment, always with new impressions. These sudden corrus- 
cations were the best things he did. His labored prepara- 
tions were actually sometimes dull. I heard him preach 
two hours before the American Board at Pittsfield, Mass., 
and the audience were tired to exhaustion. He himself was 
so mortified by the failure that I pitied him. Just think of 
that ! And yet the next day there sprang up a question in 
regard to Popery in the Sandwich Islands, and he went off 
with a philippic against the Man of Sin, and the woman 
with a bad name in the Revelation, so full of argument, wit, 
ridicule, fact, scripture, poetry, chronology, prophecy and 
pathos, that a great congregation were roused, melted, and 
convulsed. Such outbursts as these suggested the remark 
when the November meteoric shower was first observed, that 
Dr. Cox's head had probably exploded. 

And something very like a meteoric shower it was when 



MEMORIES OF DR. SAMUEL HANSON- COX. 399 

we were assembled in the Academy of Music to receive the 
Astronomer, Prof. Mitchell, and listen to him on behalf of a 
projected' Observatory in Central Park. The house was 
filled with the most brilliant, intelligent, scientific and cul- 
tivated audience. Word was brought that sudden illness 
prevented the eloquent Astronomer from leaving his bed. 
This word was sent to me by the Professor, and in despair I 
went to Dr. Cox on the stage, told him the distressing truth, 
and implored him to come to the rescue, or the occasion 
would be lost. The assembly joining in the request, he 
complied, and when the applause, on his rising, had subsi- 
ded, he said : " To put me in the place of such a man as 
Prof. Mitchell is like putting a rush-light in the place of 
Ursa Major." And then he proceeded to deliver a strictly 
astronomical discourse of three-quarters of an hour, that 
electrified the assembly : every illustration and allusion of 
which, including many scripture quotations, were drawn 
from the science itself, as if it were the study of his life, his 
only study. Not one man in ten thousand would have been 
found equal to such an effort in such circumstances. In 

fact, as Mr. has recently said there are not more than 

thirty men in Boston who could have written the works of 
Shakespeare, I will undertake to admit there is not one man 
in New York who could have made that speech. 

And thus might I run on into other pages of reminis- 
cence of this wonderful man, the most remarkable man of 
the last generation in the pulpit of New York. If a merry 
heart is good as a medicine, how many doctors' bills Doctor 
Cox has saved me. What noctes ambrosianae I have had 
with him in the fellowship of the saints whom he drew into 
that circle of Christian Brothers known as X. A. in New 
York ! He was its founder ! Its jubilee came this year, and 
Dr. Adams was appointed to recite its history. But he pre- 
ceded the founder by a few brief weeks to a holier fellowship 
on high. 

I do thank God for such men, for their friendship, 
for genial intercourse, nightly converse, and daily service 
with such servants ot Christ, Their names were long 



400 IRENMUS LETTERS. 

since written in heaven. The earth seems dim since their 
light has gone out. And as I close this letter, the 
thought comes to me with overpowering, but also with 
exhilarating, almost rapturous effect, that this companion- 
ship will soon be renewed, and into the widened circle will 
come the wise and the good of all ages and lands. That 
company will never break up ; that feast and flow will be 
everlasting. 






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